the mist movie review ending

The Ending Of The Mist Finally Explained

In 1980, Stephen King published one of his most disturbing stories, a novella called  The Mist . King was inspired to write the story after a thunderstorm killed the power in his hometown of Bangor, Maine. The next day, he went to a grocery store and imagined a "big prehistoric flying reptile" causing havoc inside. The double whammy of bad weather and weird visions encouraged King to write a horror classic about people trapped in a supermarket by a mysterious mist, with some very nasty creatures lurking outside.

In 2007, Frank Darabont adapted the story for the big screen. Darabont had a long history with King's work, having directed both The Shawshank Redemption and The Green Mile . But The Mist was way more disturbing than either of those movies, and it got even darker when Darabont wrote a new ending. The film's final twist devastated audiences, and it still traumatizes people today. 

So, why did the movie get so bleak? Why did The Mist end with not with a whimper but four horrible bangs? Well, if you're brave enough to head into the fog, we're about to explain The Mist 's ending, once and for all.

Storm's a-comin'

It all starts with a storm rolling into a sleepy Maine town, felling trees, wrecking homes, and serving as a portent for bad things to come. The storm also knocks out the power in the area, forcing artist David Drayton (Thomas Jane) and his young son Billy (Nathan Gamble) to drive into town for supplies. Their next door neighbor, big city lawyer Brent Norton (Andre Braugher), hitches a ride to the store. While David and Brent have had their issues, they're putting aside their differences for the day.

Their newfound friendship isn't going to last long.

When the trio arrives at the supermarket, we're quickly introduced to the major players, including Ollie the good-natured bag boy (Toby Jones), elderly schoolmarm Irene Reppler (Frances Sternhagen), new-in-town teacher Amanda Dumfries (Laurie Holden), and religious nutjob Mrs. Carmody (Marcia Gay Harden). The store is packed with locals, out-of-towners, and soldiers from a nearby army base. The lines are long and the non-perishable food is going fast, but at least everybody is alive... for now.

And that's when things start getting creepy. A squadron of police cars screams past the store. The soldiers act weird when they're called back to base. A civil defense siren begins wailing nearby. The dread is slowly building, and it doesn't make us feel any better that earlier in the film, David noticed an unusual mist rolling down the mountains. It feels like there's trouble brewing. That's when someone comes screaming into the store.

There's something in the mist

Anybody would be freaked out if they lost power and heard sirens, but when you see a dude covered in blood running for his life, that's when the real terror sets in. As the folks inside supermarket start getting nervous, a local named Dan Miller (Jeffrey DeMunn) comes sprinting for the store, his face caked with gore. When he bursts through the doors, he screams that something in the mist took his friend, which doesn't exactly boost morale.

That's when the aforementioned mist shows up, rolling across town and swallowing everything in the store parking lot. It's impossible to see what's happening in the fog, but we can hear the screams of one unlucky soul who made a dash for his car. Making things worse, a sudden earthquake rocks the store, taking the panic level all the way to Code Red. The whole scene is reminiscent of 9/11 and the horrific images of panicked New Yorkers running from a massive dust cloud. The metaphor here is very intentional — similar to War of the Worlds  (2005) and Cloverfield (2008) — and director Frank Darabont does an amazing job of capturing the fear and confusion people felt on that tragic day. And just like in real life, things only get darker from here on.

Won't somebody here see a lady home?

With the parking lot full of fog, everybody in the store agrees to keep the doors shut tight. After all, maybe there was a chemical explosion at the local mill. Step outside, and you might get a face full of poison gas. So everyone agrees to stay inside... except for one woman (Melissa McBride). She's a mom who left her kids at home to do some quick grocery shopping, but with the world falling apart, she can't sit around twiddling her thumbs. She's got to get back to her kids.

Several people try to stop her, warning her that it's too dangerous, but this mom isn't going to hear it. Still, she's a little nervous about facing the mist all alone and desperately asks if anyone will help her. That's when everybody goes quiet. Nobody is going out there. It's death. They all sheepishly look away and ignore her pleas. 

Teary-eyed and disgusted, she curses the group ("I hope you all rot in hell," she says — and boy, do they) and then strides into the mist, having faith she can get home in one piece. It's a nerve-wracking and heartbreaking moment... and one we'll need to file away for future reference. This is going to come around full circle and hammer some themes down hard.    

Here come the monsters

With the mist looming outside, the folks inside the store hunker down for the long haul. David heads into the back in search of blankets, and that's when some truly weird stuff starts happening. He hears something outside the store — something very, very big — and it's trying to get inside. Naturally, our hero is a little freaked out, but when he tells Ollie, good old boy mechanics Jim (William Sadler) and Myron (David Jensen), and Norm the number two bag boy (Chris Owen), they're more than a little skeptical. Instead of listening to David, they dismiss his wild claims and open the back door so they can fix the store's generator.

This turns out to be a very bad idea.

Almost immediately after opening the door, a whole bunch of tentacles come slithering inside. Giant, disgusting, Lovecraftian tentacles. Some are squid-like, meant for grabbing and squeezing. Others come equipped with black talons and hundreds of little biting mouths. We never see what these tentacles are attached to, but whatever it is, it's in the mood for a snack. The beast wraps itself around poor Norm, and despite David and Ollie's best efforts, the tentacles rip the kid to pieces before dragging him outside. Now we know this is no chemical explosion or freak weather occurrence. Whatever's happening here, it's paranormal and pretty hungry. 

Us vs. them

After the octopus from hell murders poor Norm, David is in a tricky situation. He has to persuade a store full of people that there are monsters in the mist. That's going to be a tough sell, especially since a lot of these people aren't locals. While the residents know David and his three eyewitness aren't crazy, the out-of-towners might think they're all psycho. 

After all, there's serious tension between the locals and the out-of-towners who vacation in the area. David has even gone to court with his seasonal neighbor, Brent Norton. But David wants to convince Brent — a respected attorney — of the tentacled threat. That way, the lawyer can use his position of power to convince everyone they're in deep trouble.  

However, when David tries to explain, Brent thinks he and his buddies are pranking him as revenge for that lawsuit. Honestly, we get where Brent is coming from. Even though Brent spends his money and pays taxes in town, some of the locals aren't so welcoming and gossip about him behind his back. Then there's the race angle. Brent is one of the few black people in a store full of small-town white folks. So he's probably a bit suspicious when these "hicks" show up with such a tall tale.

Instead of convincing people they're in danger, Brent goes hard in the other direction, telling everyone David is a liar, and that they should all leave. Lines are being drawn inside the supermarket, and our human tendency to separate into groups is a huge theme in The Mist . As David and Brent are about to find out, that tendency can get people killed.

Attack of the killer insects

The artist and the attorney have started drawing sides. David convinces most everyone there's a real threat, and his group begins fortifying the plate glass storefront with heavy bags. But Brent isn't buying David's story, and he rallies a band of rationalists. Together, these intrepid skeptics venture into the mist... but they don't get far. 

We know this because a badass biker on Team David (Brian Libby) ties a rope around his waist and walks outside with Team Brent, hoping to find a shotgun. But after a nasty game of tug o' war, David pulls the rope back to find the biker has been ripped in half. Things escalate that night when monstrous wasps and hungry pterodactyls start flying down the aisles on a murderous shopping spree.

During all this, we learn two majorly important details. First, this is where neighborhood nutjob Mrs. Carmody gets some serious cred. She's a bloodthirsty Bible-thumper who thinks the end times are nigh, and earlier that day, she had predicted the monsters would attack at night and kill someone. The creatures are happy to oblige. Then she survives an encounter with a demon bee by keeping perfectly still, convincing some that God is on her side.

This is also where the gun shows up. Before the attack, we learn that Amanda Dumfries keeps a pistol in her purse and that Ollie is a competitive shooter. Naturally, the bespectacled bag boy is given the gun, and during the nighttime battle, he fills a pterodactyl full of lead. But if a gun shows up early in a horror movie, it's definitely coming back in the climax.

Spiders in King's Pharmacy

When you've got killer bugs flying around, a lot of bad things can happen. You might wind up as dinner, or you might even catch on fire and desperately need painkillers from the pharmacy next door. And that's exactly happens to some poor soul, so Team David heads into the mist, searching for medicine. Sure, Mrs. Carmody warns them not to go, worried they'll bring back the monsters, but who's going to listen to this crazy lady?

However, when the group arrives at the appropriately named King's Pharmacy, they make a terrifying discovery. Either Peter Parker has been here, or Team David is in serious trouble. The place is covered in thick, sticky webs, and there's a soldier wrapped up, Aliens -style. Even though he's in serious pain, the soldier says something pretty significant: "I'm sorry... it's all our fault." And then he  bursts open , and thousands of baby spiders go skittering across the floor. Yeah, the dude was filled with arachnids, and this is where it's totally okay to lose your lunch.

Unfortunately, babies mean mommies and daddies, and soon, the place is crawling with spiders the size of schnauzers. And despite Ollie's Annie Oakley abilities, the arachnids murder two members of Team David. This is a major turning point in the movie, as the defeat of Team David gives Mrs. Carmody the power to sway most of the store to her side. And when Carmody is calling the shots, she takes all the fun out of fundamentalism.

Today's word is expiation

As he explained to  Yahoo! Entertainment , Frank Darabont "was in something of a mean mood" while adapting The Mist , and in an interview with Ain't It Cool News , he described the film as "an outraged liberal tract." After all, the movie hit theaters in 2007, and casualties were high in Iraq and Afghanistan. So when Darabont brought Stephen King's story to the big screen, he was taking aim at the Bush White House. If there's any doubt, Darabont said the movie was a " microcosm of our culture " because "reasonable people are getting ground up in the machinery and agendas of the unreasonable people who are in power."

So, if the mist rolling into town evokes 9/11 imagery, it's logical to assume Mrs. Carmody might represent George W. Bush. Both are religious people who took charge after a devastating attack, and depending on your politics, used fear to justify some very controversial decisions. Of course, Mrs. Carmody doesn't have to be George W. Bush to work as a metaphor. She can represent any fearmonger of any political party who uses fear, religion, and xenophobia to whip up a crowd and make them do horrible things. And now that Team David has been defeated by the spiders, most of the store is turning to Mrs. Carmody, who's about to call for some old-fashioned human sacrifice.

The truth behind Project Arrowhead

Mrs. Carmody is preaching some serious fire and brimstone, talking about atonement and God's punishment. And as things turn into Lord of the Flies , David decides to speak with the three troops stuck with them in the store, hoping for answers about the mist. After all, the spider-infested soldier at the pharmacy said the mist was the military's fault. But things fall apart when David finds two of the three soldiers have committed suicide in the back room. As for unlucky Soldier #3 (Sam Witwer), he's been dragged before the court of Mrs. Carmody.

As he begs for his life before an angry crowd, the soldier explains that military scientists at a nearby base were conducting an experiment called the Arrowhead Project. They were trying to open a window to peer into other dimensions, but unfortunately, that window turned out to be more of a door, unleashing the mist and all these nightmare monsters. Furious, Mrs. Carmody says it's time for some human sacrifice to keep the beasts at bay, and the frenzied crowd tortures the poor soldier before tossing him outside. Seconds later, he's viciously devoured by a gigantic praying mantis. 

If Team David had any hesitations about leaving before, they're now packing their bags as quick as they can. The threats outside have nothing on Carmody and her crew. Giant spiders and pterodactyls? That's nothing compared to the monster we call "man."

The darkest ending of all time

As Team David plans their escape, they're stopped by Mrs. Carmody and her cult, who decide to sacrifice David's son. Fortunately, Ollie pulls out that pistol and introduces Mrs. Carmody to her maker. With the psycho preacher dead, Team David runs into the mist, where several members, including Ollie, are picked off by killer bugs. The surviving members — David, his son, Amanda, Dan, and the elderly Irene Reppler — pile into a car and drive into the fog... but not before David grabs Ollie's gun. 

Warning: this is where things get grim .

As they work their way down the road, they see toppled telephone poles, wrecked cars, and a school bus savaged by spiders. They find the webbed-up body of David's dead wife, watch an enormous Lovecraftian creature lumber by, and no matter how far they drive, the mist stretches on forever. Eventually, they run out of gas, and as they hear the monsters outside, they decide a bullet is better than a flesh-hungry bug.  

With barely a word, they all agree to give up. David checks the gun, sees there are only four bullets for five people, and does the deed, killing everyone in the car, including his son. David is the only one alive, howling like a wounded animal. But his despair gets worse when seconds later, a military convoy rumbles out of the mist. Adding insult to injury, David sees vehicles full of survivors, including Melissa McBride and her kids. The mist begins to clear, and David is left screaming in pain. If only he'd waited a few more seconds, his son would still be alive. And on that cheery note, the film fades to black.

Hope, The Mist, and The Shawshank Redemption

The Mist doesn't think very highly of mankind. It shares a worldview with movies like Night of the Living Dead and John Carpenter's The Thing   (there's even a Thing poster in the film's opening). According to The Mist , people are prone to paranoia and distrust, and will turn on each other when things go south. But at the same time, the movie is ultimately a message about the power of hope and what happens when hope disappears.

Speaking with Yahoo! Entertainment , Darabont explained The Mist works as a companion piece with his first feature, The Shawshank Redemption . As Darabont put it, "If Shawshank is the movie about the value of hope, then The Mist becomes a movie about the danger of hopelessness." So in the '94 classic, Andy Dufresne (Tim Robbins) hangs onto hope and escapes from prison. But in The Mist , instead of getting busy living, David and his companions get busy dying. While Andy keeps the faith and finds freedom, David gives up and loses everything when salvation was so close.

And this is where Melissa McBride's character comes back in. This mom marched into the fog to rescue her kids, even though everyone else was scared and tried to stop her. She never let go of hope, and as a result, she saved her children. David, on the other hand, fell into despair and lost his son's life. So what's the big moral of  The Mist ? Even if life feels like a never-ending nightmare, be like Andy Dufresne or Melissa McBride, because you never know when the mist will fade away.

The movie vs. the book

Both the novella and movie versions of The Mist are excellent, but they radically differ when it comes to the ending. While the film goes in a decidedly dark direction, King's novella is much more ambiguous. In fact, the author actually leaves his readers with some hope that things will work out for David and his crew. Team David escapes the super market, but instead of committing mass suicide, David turns on the radio and thinks he hears a voice say the word "Hartford." Encouraged, he believes Hartford, Connecticut, might be a safe zone, and he heads in that direction.

The novella ends with David narrating these final lines : "I'm going to bed now. But first I'm going to kiss my son and whisper two words in his ear... Two words that sound a bit alike. One of them is Hartford. The other is hope." And that's where the book ends, hinting that maybe Team David is going to be okay. Obviously, Darabont decided to traumatize moviegoers, thanks to the political landscape at the time, but Stephen King was totally okay with the new ending. When Darabont asked for King's opinion on the nihilistic finale, the author gave him two thumbs up. King even  famously declared that "anybody who reveals the last 5 minutes of this film should be hung from their neck until dead." We really hope he doesn't read this list.

The Mist Ending: What Happens, And How It Differs From The Book

Warning: spoilers for The Mist are in play. If you haven't experienced the terror for yourself, bookmark this piece and come back.

With all of this talk about Stephen King movies in 2017, there's one movie that's been a recurring thought in our minds as of late: Frank Darabont 's 2007 adaptation of The Mist . Blame it on how it's been the year for Stephen King adaptations or the fact that the Spike TV adaptation was cancelled . Hell, seeing Thomas Jane in this weekend's 1922 kind of drove the point home, as he's once again proven he's one of those actors that just gets King's work.

Most importantly, it's Halloween, and that's the time of year to indulge in what truly scares you. And if being stuck in a grocery store with an angry mob led by a religious zealot inside isn't something to be afraid of, having massive and unfriendly creatures waiting on the outside certainly is. Though the thing that scares us the most about The Mist is its ending, an occurrence so shocking that it's still one of the most harsh finales we've ever seen. It's an ending we need to discuss, and that's exactly what we're about to do. Prepare yourselves, as we're about to go back into The Mist .

How The Movie Ends

After spending almost the whole movie cooped up in the supermarket, hiding from the creatures that make their home in The Mist , Thomas Jane 's David Drayton leaves the safety of the building with a select group of people, in order to drive into the mist. The surviving party members find themselves stranded on the road, as the car they took runs out of gas mid-journey. Faced with the choice of either being ended by the monsters or by their own devices, the group allows David to shoot them all as an act of mercy. This includes David's young son, who's only eight years old at the time.

Unfortunately for David, there were five people and four bullets, leaving himself unable to finish his task by killing himself. So he walks outside, egging on fate to engage in what we've come to know is the standard operating procedure of The Mist : the prospect of a horrific monster eating him. Only, that doesn't happen. Apparently, the Army base that started this mess got the situation under control, and David sees this all too clearly when soldiers start to clean up the area around him. But the real kicker is when he sees truckloads of survivors from the supermarket they had fled, including a woman who previously wandered into the mist, played by The Walking Dead 's Melissa McBride .

With his wife dead, and having just mercy killed everyone in his party including his young son, David realizes that if they'd stayed put just stopped for a single moment and thought things through, everyone would have been ok. He screams in pure madness, and the film ends. You can watch these last few moments for yourself, in the clip below.

That's not the end of the madness though, as if the movie's David knew the ending of the original Mist novella, he'd have gone even crazier.

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How The Book Ended

The novella The Mist ends pretty similar to the movie, with a daring escape being made by David, his son, and two others. What follows is a longer driving sequence that hits upon the heavily implied death of David's wife, and sees the crew making their way to a Howard Johnson's hotel near the state border. As he finishes writing the pages explaining the entirety of The Mist , he sets up the ending with the following caveat:

But you mustn't expect some neat conclusion. ... It is I suppose, what my father always frowningly called "an Alfred Hitchcock ending," by which he meant a conclusion in ambiguity that allowed the reader or viewer to make up his own mind about how things ended. My father had nothing but contempt for such stories, saying they were "cheap shots."

Rather than definitively ending, The Mist's literary form leaves its conclusion ambiguous, with the prospect of salvation being found in Hartford, Connecticut - based on David's apparently hearing that town's name in a brief radio transmission. He mulls over the thought that they can only make it so far on the amount of gas they have, even has a prospect to refuel the car. In the end, he kisses his son good night, and whispers "Hartford" and "Hope" to him.

So while The Mist has a bleak, unforgiving, and finite conclusion in Frank Darabont's adaptation, the novella has a more open ended conclusion that gives hope to David Drayton, his son, and the two women that followed them into the wild. Right about now, you're probably thinking to yourself, "why the hell did they change the ending?" Well, we've got some ideas on that, and they're supported by the King of horror himself.

Why They Changed It

There was one big force behind changing the ending to The Mist for the theatrical adaptation, and it was Frank Darabont himself. When talking about the new conclusion in an interview, Stephen King explained how this came to be.

When Frank was interested in The Mist, one of the things that he insisted on was that it would have some kind of an ending, which the story doesn't have -- it just sort of peters off into nothing, where these people are stuck in the mist, and they're out of gas, and the monsters are around, and you don't know what's going to happen next. When Frank said that he wanted to do the ending that he was going to do, I was totally down with that. I thought that was terrific. And it was so anti-Hollywood -- anti-everything, really! It was nihilistic. I liked that. So I said you go ahead and do it.

When making The Mist in an era that saw the worldwide public dealing with the brutal realities of ongoing war and terrorism, it kind of made sense to beef up the ending into something that embraced a darker sense of realism. It would only be a year or so until The Dark Knight got in on the action, but Darabont and King saw the opportunity for a definitive and memorable ending, and took it.

Reading Stephen King's remarks on the ending, there's one key thing you have to keep in mind: the original story was written in 1980, which not only makes it one of King's earliest works, but also happens to be in the same year that Stanley Kubrick 's The Shining made its way into theaters. Considering how much Stephen King hated the way The Shining was adapted, he's always had a bit of an anti-Hollywood bent on his mind, and who could blame him? It only makes sense that he would trust Frank Darabont, the man who made The Shawshank Redemption and The Green Mile into the successful adaptations they were. But the fact that this ending allowed King to get one up on Hollywood convention feels like it was the icing on his cake. Something he's never been shy of expressing since day one.

What King Thought Of The Ending

Needless to say, Stephen King is one of the biggest fans of the ending to The Mist's film adaptation, and that's not information that's new. While the previous quote about his approval of the ending came as early as a couple months ago, King was still cheerleading for the film's nihilist conclusion when the film was first released into the world. He'd said as much in an interview with USA Today around the time of the film's release, stating that:

The ending is such a jolt --- wham! --- it's frightening. But people who go to see a horror movie don't necessarily want to be sent out with a Pollyanna ending.

He only further poured the affection on Frank Darabont's thrilling end to David Drayton's adventures, as he doubled down in a press conference for The Mist's release and said this:

Frank wrote a new ending that I loved. It is the most shocking ending ever and there should be a law passed stating that anybody who reveals the last 5 minutes of this film should be hung from their neck until dead.

It's hard not to see Stephen King's glee for the fact that The Mist was not only going to bum out a bunch of new fans that had never experienced the material before, but also that loyal fans who read the book were about to be in for a bit of a shock themselves. After all, the man loves a good shock and/or scare at the expense of his audience, so why wouldn't he enjoy it if it fits into the parameters of the story that came before it? But is it truly the better ending?

Which Ending Was Better?

For hardcore Stephen King fans, picking a favorite ending to The Mist must is like Sophie's choice. But, taking both into consideration for their individual merits, there's some good points to be made. The ending to The Mist in novella form speaks to the dogged determination of our species. It's a hopeful ending that says we can make it, if only we push ourselves far enough, with enough smart thought behind our decisions. It's an inconclusive ending, but it allows for hope to flourish with the right thinking.

The ending to Frank Darabont's The Mist though is a dark, gut-punch of an ending, that shows a man on the wrong side of fate, with one less bullet than he needed. It is a bleak ending that does not rely on fate or indecision to lead the audience towards their own preferences, and it forces you to see its definitive conclusion in all of its dark glory, letting you decide to either accept or reject it on those standards alone.

In all honestly, I favor that second ending, purely because it feels more like the Stephen King I've come to know in a more modern context. Also, it's an ending so audacious in what it does, that you kind of have to respect it. But most importantly, it's an ending that brought The Mist into the modern age without having to change all that much about the story to begin with. The possibility for soul crushing defeat was always there in the world of David Drayton and his compatriots. All Frank Darabont did was give the story the push it needed, ultimately sealing everyone's fates.

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Mike Reyes is the Senior Movie Contributor at CinemaBlend, though that title’s more of a guideline really. Passionate about entertainment since grade school, the movies have always held a special place in his life, which explains his current occupation. Mike graduated from Drew University with a Bachelor’s Degree in Political Science, but swore off of running for public office a long time ago. Mike's expertise ranges from James Bond to everything Alita, making for a brilliantly eclectic resume. He fights for the user.

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The Mist Ending, Explained: Who Are the Monsters?

One of the trickiest genres in filmmaking is that of horror. Most commonly, we find the horror films to have some gothic, Victorian-era setting; and while the atmosphere plays a great role in setting the mood, its overuse leads to the story being predictable and repetitive. The introduction to a new backdrop not only gives one a fresh start but also provides the filmmakers with ample opportunity to surprise their audience. And honestly, this is exactly what the audience wants. Perhaps, this is the reason why Frank Darabont’s ‘The Mist’ made such an impact, that even a decade after its release, one cannot help but be repulsed by the absolute dread that it served in the form of its heart-wrenching ending. It comes as no surprise that the film succeeded in making such an impact, because it was based on Stephen King’s novel of the same name, and if there is one thing King does right, it is finding different ways to terrify his readers and provide them with one or more forms of fears that stick into one’s subconscious and materialise as irrational phobias. The best example of this is the “clown-ophobia” that people suffer from because of ‘It’.

In the 2007 film ‘The Mist’, something similar, but worse, happened. Before we immerse ourselves completely into the murky rationalisation of what happened in the story, here is a short recap. SPOILER ALERT!

‘The Mist’, A Hazy Outline of the Story

It begins with a stormy night in the small town of Bridgton, Maine. David is an artist who finds refuge in his basement, with his wife and son, for the night. In the morning, they discover that a tree has run through the window and into his studio and that their boat-house has been completely shattered as well. While examining their losses, they notice a thick mist developing over the surface of the lake, on whose banks their house stands, though it is still too far to draw any substantial conclusions about. In a need to restock their supplies, David and his son run an errand to the supermarket, which they find is crowded by almost everyone that they know in the town. Also, phones are not working, electricity is down, and there is an unusual appearance of the army in the town.

Just as they have collected all they need and are waiting their turn on the counter, a man comes running in, bleeding and befuddled, and tells everyone that there is something in the mist, something horrible that took his friend. No sooner than this happens, the mist that they had earlier seen on the far side of the lake begins to quickly engulf the whole surroundings in the thick, “impenetrable to sight” layer. It doesn’t take time for the things in the mist to make their presence felt, and the people in the supermarket shut themselves in to save themselves from the danger lurking outside.

In the lack of facilities, like communication and electricity, it doesn’t take time for people to adopt a primitive sense for survival. As time passes by, social sanity eventually collapses, and the different shades of humanity come to light in a very short span of time. The death of a handful of people amongst them only augments the thought process of everyone, and we see a miniature form of the whole society in one enclosed space. One thing leads to another, more people die, and then we come to the end of the story which is perhaps one of the most horrifying finales any story has ever received.

What’s in the Mist?

One of the better things about ‘The Mist’ is that it centralises itself around the important things, without taking any unnecessary detours into explaining the cause and nature of the danger that haunts its characters. With some subtle dialogues, and here and there mentions, it provides a vague idea to the audience about what brought this hell upon the residents of Bridgton. In the movie, from the conversation between David and Brent, while they are on their way to the supermarket and see some army trucks passing by, we understand that some distance away from the town there is a secret government facility. Like any other secret government project, locals have no idea what the purpose of that project is. There are rumours and speculations, but nothing substantial.

Sometime later, in the supermarket, we see three soldiers who are ready for their leaves, however, their happiness is cut short when a man, from the military police, approaches them and tells them to meet him outside in five minutes. In the pharmacy scene, the same officer is found all wrapped up in a web and utters the words “It’s our fault. It’s all our fault”, which is what raises the suspicions of David and Co about the military. Further, on facing confrontation, Private Jessup admits that his partners, who are found dead in the generator room, had told him that there was something that went wrong the night before. That the scientists were trying to open a window into the other universe, just get a peek of what it was like on the other side. But, in the words of Mrs Carmody, “the window turned into a door.” All of this, points towards the fact that, indeed, the facility must be the place for some experiments, and when they went awry the whole town had to pay for it.

What’s the Arrowhead Project?

Even after all the hints, in the film, the mystery surrounding the project remains as thick as the one that seems to have swallowed up the town. What was the Arrowhead Project? What blunder did they make this time in the name of scientific curiosity? And where did these creatures come from, if not from the pre-historical times?

The ones who have read the novella know exactly what it all is. In fact, there was a scene that was to serve as an explanation for this, but it was edited away because it seemed irrelevant in comparison to the dominant themes of the film. According to what was originally intended, the film was supposed to start with a scene in the facility with the scientists all pumped up by the new breakthrough in science. As previously stated, they had found a way to look into the other universes. The key to it was maintaining ample supply of energy to keep the window open. But the night that they made the first attempt, the storm raided the town and the electricity sparked the generator. This enhanced the supply of the energy, and so, the window turned into the door, and unintended guests came through it.

As is common knowledge, the stories of Stephen King share the same universe and hence the answer to “where did the creatures come from?” becomes more evident through his other works. ‘The Dark Tower’ plays an important role in converging the storylines of his various novels and provides explanations to a lot of things. It agrees to the existence of parallel universes and proposes the theory that between these universes are small spaces, called Todash spaces. You could think of it like the necessary space that is left between two buildings. These spaces, or rather pockets, are home to the worst things in the universe and are home to all the bad things that have appeared in King’s novels over the years. Evidently, instead of opening a gateway into another universe, the scientists tripped upon one of the Todash spaces, and that is exactly where these creatures, and the Mist, came from.

By the end of the film, it appears that they succeed in closing this portal, which stops the inflow of the Mist and the creatures. What remains on Earth is then exterminated by the use of fire and other weapons. This also gives ground to the theory that the Mist is an important thing for the creatures to survive. Perhaps, it is to the creatures what oxygen is to us. When the portal is closed, the inflow of the Mist is stopped, and perhaps, with time, it starts to dissipate. Once their life source is gone, it becomes easier to get rid of these creatures.

Fear and Chaos in Bridgton

All the sci-fi basis, the blood and the gore are just the dust on the surface when it comes to digging the real meaning of ‘The Mist’. Before making this film, Frank Darabont had already proved himself well-conversed with the art of bringing King’s stories to life on the screen. He had made ‘The Shawshank Redemption’ and ‘The Green Mile’, and it was the success of these films that established King’s faith in Darabont. Considering his work in these films, it was no surprise that Darabont would look past the superficial plotline and focus on the deeper aspects of the story. His success at peeling through the layers and bringing out the core message of the story is what made this film so impactful.

‘The Mist’ becomes a study of human nature as soon as the people close the doors and trap themselves in the supermarket. Even with just a handful of people, the supermarket becomes the ground for a power struggle and furthering one’s own propaganda. People use the fear of others to rise up the ladder of the social structure. In all the chaos, there are three categories in which everyone quickly aligns themselves.

The first category is that of staunch sceptics. David and a couple of other men become the first ones to first-hand witness the danger lurking outside their safe space. They know what they are dealing with and they pass this information on to the others. Out of these, a group of people segregate themselves very quickly. Brent, David’s neighbour who had faced some row with him in the past, convinces himself that David is pulling a prank on him and refuses to believe anything that he tells them. Initially, his stand is supported by the manager of the place who, later, sees the hacked-off tentacle and agrees with David about the seriousness of the situation. Even then, Brent refuses to believe that there is any danger out there in the Mist and convince “his people” to venture out of the store and go back to their houses. Not long after, we find out that this decision doesn’t turn out so well for them.

The second category is of the rationalists. David, Ollie, Amanda and a few other people weigh in their thoughts on how to deal with the situation and begin to take precautions and hatch plans for what to do in case they have to deal with the worst. These people are not turning a blind eye, unlike the sceptics, to the mess that they are in, and also, aren’t surrendering their fate to the higher power, praying God to save them, which is exactly the kind of people the third category constitutes of. It is through these distinctions that ‘The Mist’ offers a clear view of how diversely motivating fear can be for people.

Who are the Monsters?

Mrs Carmody is introduced to us as a religious fanatic. She is a staunch Catholic and the moment the Mist materialises outside the supermarket, she recognizes it as Death. While others busy themselves with making the place safer and putting precautions in place, she begins to read from the Revelation and tells everyone that it’s the errs of the humans that the divine has decided not to forgive anymore. She prays to God, to provide her with strength, to help her save these people, even if just a single one, and to help her fulfil her purpose on the Earth.

It is not wrong to be religious. It is not wrong to have faith in a higher power. It isn’t a bad thing to hold onto the hope that divine intervention could save your life. Mrs Carmody really believes that she has been a good Catholic and that the plague that God has sent down on Earth will not affect her, as long as she preaches the word of God and absolves people of their erroneous ways. Her faith becomes her power when the creatures succeed in breaking the glass and entering the market. One insect bites the girl who worked the counters, and she dies in a rather horrendous manner. However, when another insect lands on Mrs Carmody, she surrenders herself and prays to God, and she is excused of imminent death. So, being a good Catholic isn’t such a bad thing after all. Although, the insect not attacking her can be owed to a lot of reasons. She didn’t move and stayed calm, which didn’t encourage the insect to bite her, maybe because it sensed no fear from her, unlike from Sally.

However, her religion takes a sinister turn after her confrontation with death. She begins to preach with intensified vigour, begins to come up with all sorts of theories about what is happening around them, and what it will take to keep the danger at bay. What’s more frightening is that after every incident, the number of her followers keeps increasing. She becomes the centre of the cult that more and more people become a part of, and with their increasing numbers, the rationalists have to make the choice of the kind of monsters they’d rather fight.

A religious frenzy takes over most of the people and as they accept Mrs Carmody as their leader and their saviour, they allow themselves to do anything and everything on her behest. They don’t hesitate in serving the young soldier to the monsters outside, brutally stabbing him before throwing him out, to save their own hide. The race for survival takes away their ability to weigh the morality of their actions, and they become mindless savages who will do anything in the name of their God (Remind you of something?).

If you find yourself asking “Is religion bad for humanity?”, then you are asking the wrong question. Surely, Mrs Carmody wasn’t the only one who believed in God. Early on, a biker, who tries to retrieve the shotgun from the truck and allows David to tie a rope around his waist, remarks that he, too, believes in God, but not the same way as Mrs Carmody. Mrs Reppler, the elderly teacher, also gives the impression that she is a Catholic but refuses to believe the Dark Ages stuff being preached by Mrs Carmody. Religion is a human construct and it doesn’t have the power to be bad for us.

Mrs Carmody’s actions reflect on her religion, but it truly is all about the kind of person that she is- a power hungry, attention seeker who prospers in chaos. Also, she fails to incite real faith inside her followers, because as soon as she is shot dead, their enthusiasm to follow her demands subsides and they quickly give up arms against David’s group, acting as if they have just broken off of a spell. They even allow one of his people to re-enter the market when the creatures attack them. Had they been strongly influenced by Carmody, they wouldn’t have saved one of her enemies. It turns out, Mrs Carmody’s charisma died with her.

The Mist Trivia

Before we move on with the heavier tone of the discussion and talk about that terrifying ending, let us spend some time with the trivial details of the film.

Frank Darabont was consumed with the idea of making this film in black-and-white. Influenced by films like ‘Night of the Living Dead’, he believed that a black-and-white palette would intensify the impact of the film, and drive it more in sync with the atmosphere that he wanted. The binary form would make the difference between the Mist and the interiors of the supermarket more pronounced, and the toning down of the colours would direct the focus more on the essence of the story, rather than drawing the attention of the audience toward the CGI used in it. And, in the long run, his thoughts were justifiable. The CGI of the film has aged rather poorly.

There are a couple of Easter Eggs for the fans of the King-verse and while some stare at your face, others are obscured by intense scenes. The first and most visible of them is the painting which David is busy working on at the start of the film. The rose, the man in the hat- it is Roland Deschain, the protagonist of ‘The Dark Tower’ series.

In the scene where the creatures enter the store, David tries to use fire to burn them. Another man, named Joe, tries the same feat, however, his attempts turn into a blunder when he burns himself. As he runs away, he knocks down a spinning bookshelf on the way. That shelf was stacked exclusively with King’s books. Also, the pharmacy next to the store, where David and Co later go to get some medicines for Joe, is named King’s Pharmacy.

The Ending: Is It Better to Be Lucky or Smart?

In one of the most harrowing endings in cinema, ‘The Mist’ raises a couple of questions before its audience. By the end, as the number of Mrs Carmody’s followers rises, and David and his group watch Private Jessup being murdered by them, they decide to flee and test their luck outside. They believe that staying in the supermarket is more dangerous and they are proven right when Mrs Carmody tells her followers to grab David’s boy and offer him as the next sacrifice. They aim for David’s car, but only five of them are able to make it. As they ride away, they realise that the Mist is endless and that everything has been destroyed by it. They come to a standstill when the car runs out of gas, and they come to the conclusion that there is no escape from the Mist. Weighing their choices, they decide to kill themselves rather than suffering the painful deaths, being torn apart by the creatures.

The problem arises when the number of people exceeds the number of bullets by one. David decides to let others have the easy way out and tells himself that he’ll find some other way to die. And then, four shots resound in the eerily quiet environs of the Mist. Devastated by the death of everyone around him, David calls upon the creatures to come for him and finish the job. However, to his horror, he watches the army swoop in, along with other survivors, and the Mist quickly subsiding behind them. What is worse is the fact that the woman who had left the store, at the start, for her two kids who had been alone at home, waiting for her, was alive and well, along with her kids.

This ending begs the question: What would you have done? Would you have held on to hope and allowed some more time to pass before letting go of your desire to live? Of course, it is easier to say yes when you know that help was just minutes away. But, put yourself into David’s shoes and think hard about the mental state that you would have landed yourself in after fighting the monsters, both human and supernatural, and then driving around town, only to find out that everyone was dead? It might have only seemed minutes in the film, as we saw them cruising around the town, but in reality, it must have been hours, if not days. Years ago, through ‘The Shawshank Redemption’, Darabont had shown people how important hope is for survival. Through the ending of ‘The Mist’, he reinforced this moral, even if in some cruel order.

Should David have stayed back in the store? Clearly, it wasn’t an option as long as Mrs Carmody was alive. Sooner or later, she would have found an excuse to sacrifice someone from their group. But when Ollie shot her, surely, they could have reconsidered their decision. But then, it all happened so fast. Who had time to think? The thing is, they had no idea that the army was cleaning up the mess. If they had any hint of the fact that help was on the way, perhaps, things would have taken a different turn. But they didn’t know where to go and how to contact someone. They didn’t even know far the Mist had stretched its claws. For them, the whole world could have been sharing the same fate as their town.

As it simply happened, luck was not on their side, just like it wasn’t on the side of the rest of the people who died in the film. They tried everything they could to protect themselves. They tried to be brave about their situation and kept themselves alive for as long as they could, without falling victims to the creatures. They didn’t allow themselves to be influenced by the crap that Mrs Carmody was propagating. They were smart, just not lucky enough!

The Significance of Mrs Carmody’s Prophecies

One of the complicated things about this world is that being right and being good doesn’t always fall under the same umbrella. Surely, Mrs Carmody was the villain of this story, and that might lead us to believe that all her teachings were utter nonsense. But that’s just because our perspective is skewed on the basis of a person’s character. What if Mrs Carmody was right about everything? What if it really was the end of the days, and what if, sacrifice was the only way to save everyone?

In her defence, there were a couple of times that her prophecies came true. She says that the creatures will come when the night comes and that they’ll take someone, and that is exactly what happens. When Brent and his group walks out, she tells them that they all will die, and that is what happens. The insect doesn’t attack her. Before the pharmacy trip, she tells Bobby that he’ll be “torn to shreds there” and this is what happens. She tells them that “expiation” will keep the creatures away from them. The day they sacrifice Private Jessup, no creatures attack them at night.

In the end, she asks for “the boy and the whore”. She demands Billy and Amanda be sacrificed next. But before that can happen, Ollie shoots her, and they manage to escape. However, interestingly, it is after Amanda and Billy die that the military shows up and David realises that they have been saved! What does this mean? Was the lunatic right after all? Were David and his friends prejudiced in their interpretation of what Mrs Carmody had to say?

Similarities Between The Mist and Stranger Things

‘The Mist’ was written a long ago, and it took twenty years of toying with the idea that Frank Darabont finally came around to making the film. Over a decade has passed since the film was released, but there was something that closely reminded us of it quite recently. In 2016, Netflix’s ‘Stranger Things’ premiered and gave the whole world something to dedicatedly binge on. It also gave an opportunity to King’s fans to come up with all sorts of theories about how it could be a prequel to 2007’s ‘The Mist’.

Let’s jot down all the similarities, shall we?

Number one, both the stories have secret government facilities located some miles from a small town. Both these places become the site of a portal being opened up into another world, intentionally or unintentionally. The extent of these rips escalates and some horrid creatures come out of them to kill innocent residents of the towns.

Number two, there is the Mist in both of them. In the movie, it pours out of the other side and into our world and brings along with itself the infestation of the creatures. In ‘Stranger Things’, the mist doesn’t enter our world, however, it does seem to be a fundamental part of the atmosphere of the other side, referred to as, the Upside Down. The atmosphere is always dark and foggy there, and there are these vine-like things that seem to come out from it, and with passing time, grow farther into our universe. Also, the creatures in the show and the film feature some close resemblance. Further, in the show, fire becomes an important weapon against the Demogorgon. At the end of the film, we see the army using flamethrowers to ward off the Mist and the creatures.

There are so many other things that ‘Stranger Things’ has in common with the world of Stephen King’s stories, including but not limited to ‘The Mist’. One of the major reasons for this is the fact that the Duffer Brothers, the creators of the show, are huge Stephen King fans and they were highly influenced by King’s stories. There are Easter Eggs all over the series that could lead one to believe that ‘Stranger Things’ might, in fact, share a universe with King’s, though it isn’t explicitly mentioned, yet!

Fans have drawn all sorts of conclusions and multiple theories have come into existence in the past couple of years. If interested, you can gobble up these theories in Reddit, but just so you get the gist of what you might find once you jump down that rabbit’s hole, I will try to sum it up for you. Sources suggest that the government facilities in both, the show and the movie, are one and the same. Since the show is set in the 80s, the facility was in Hawkins first, where it made all sorts of blunders and was shut down because people came to know about it. However, once the scientists had the taste of success and the knowledge of the portals, they decide to set up shop somewhere else. Hence, in 2007, which is the timeframe of ‘The Mist’, they moved to a mountain in Maine.

I’ll leave the rest for you to stumble upon on the Internet on your own.

Alternate Ending

In the novella written by Stephen King, the end of the story is not as straightforward as the one in the film. While Darabont took a specific path for his characters and decided to give them a proper conclusion no matter how devastating it was, King chose a more dubious, and rather hopeful, ending. The scenario that Darabont chose was actually not so original after all. He was inspired by King’s mention of “four bullets, five people” scenario in the book. While King chose to keep a possibility in the future, Darabont decided to cut to the chase. In King’s version, the survivors, including David and his son, drive on, until they run out of gas. However, instead of giving up hope, they decide to fill up from other vehicles along the way and make it as far as they can. Their hope is also fuelled by the fact that they hear a faint voice on the radio which says “Hartford”. So, at least, they had a destination.

However optimistic King’s ending might have been, he was more impressed with what Darabont came up with, and was disappointed for not thinking of it himself. It made a great impact on him, and I don’t think there’s a better compliment for the film than that!

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Revisiting the Ending of The Mist

We look back - with spoilers - at the incredible ending to The Mist film adaptation, based on a novella by Stephen King.

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Unsurprisingly, this article contains spoilers for 2007’s The Mist . This is a deliberately big spoiler warning, for a film you really don’t want spoiled. Really.

Stephen King is a man of many collaborations. We suspect you don’t need us to tell you that, as they span many mediums and have borne more sweet-tasting, fleshy morsels than the Man from Del Monte would know what to do with.

Without even mentioning his many silver screen collaborative efforts, there’s American Vampire , the excellent comic book series he initially co-wrote with the wildly-talented Scott Snyder; and  Ghost Brothers of Darkland County , a musical created in cahoots with T Bone Burnett. If we’re talking straight up words on a page then King’s literary tag-teaming with Peter Straub on the Talisman series is a genuine heavyweight combination.

Yet of all of his creative partnerships, it’s arguable that none have surpassed his partnership with one Frank Darabont. As this is an article discussing the ending of 2007’s King/Darabont collaboration The Mist , it’s probably worth mentioning that King and Darabont’s careers intertwine to the point that adaptations of the author’s work currently bookend Darabont’s career as a film director.

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From 1983’s The Woman in the Room through to The Mist , King and Darabont have tag teamed on four separate occasions, producing the two movies mentioned above as well as 1999’s Oscar-nominated The Green Mile and 1994’s The Shawshank Redemption . Nominated for seven Oscars (but winning none), Shawshank is currently the #1 user-voted movie on IMDb – meaning in terms of pure numbers that it’s the world’s favorite film, should you believe in such things. And if you don’t, I can explain it to you using beer mats if you like.

Although in previous adaptations of the author’s work, Darabont had taken various liberties with King’s stories (such as Tim Robbins’ mad, opera-blaring pirate radio skills in Shawshank ), 2007’s The Mist saw him divert from King’s source material like never before – he completely rewrote the ending. Although this in itself is nothing new in movie adaptations, it was the tonal sea change that Darabont’s rewritten denouement added to the film that makes it memorable today, almost a decade later.

King’s novella, first published in 1980, tells the story of David Draper and his son, marooned in a New England supermarket by an otherworldly mist while inter-dimensional beasties prowled hungrily outside. The tale ended on an uncertain note with Draper and several other survivors escaping the increasingly dangerous confines of the supermarket and heading out into the haze to death or perhaps to freedom. King himself satirized the story’s deliberately unsatisfying conclusion within the pages of The Mist when Draper, the tale’s narrator, admits that such endings can be considered ‘cheap’:

“It is, I suppose, what my father always frowningly called ‘an Alfred Hitchcock ending,’ by which he meant a conclusion in ambiguity that allowed the reader or viewer to make up his own mind about how things ended. My father had nothing but contempt for such stories, saying they were ‘cheap shots.’”

further reading: The Best Modern Horror Movies

Whether you subscribe to that theory or not, it’s easy to see that The Mist ’s ending works well given the parameters of its story. Essentially, the ending is about hope (which also happens to be the final word of the 138-page tale). While other characters in the story lose it, ending their lives or seeking it at the bottom of a bottle, others misplace hope, seeking salvation in the prophetic doom-mongering of Mrs. Carmody and her Old Testament hatred. David and his followers, however, are the few to hold onto that hope, in the face of terrible opposition and King rewards the characters for their tenacity with an ending that allows the reader’s sensibilities to determine the characters’ fate.

With Shawshank however, Darabont had already masterfully crafted one of King’s tales about the enduring nature of hope and as such, he chose to go in another direction with The Mist . In the movie’s memorable climax, having escaped the supermarket, Draper and his fellow survivors reach the conclusion that they are doomed and that suicide is their best option. Draper (played by Thomas Jane) kills the other four occupants of his jeep (including his young son) before running out of ammunition and stepping out into the mist to face the monsters and end his anguish. With tragic timing, the cavalry arrive in the form of the United States military and Draper realizes that he has just slaughtered his remaining family and friends for nought. Nada. Nothing!

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With its curious blend of schlocky B-movie CG throwing into sharper relief the numerous cinéma vérité touches (its workmanlike, documentary-style camerawork is complemented by a lack of music for the first hour and a half), The Mist represents something of a stylistic oddity and perhaps this is why it was received with relative ambivalence upon its cinematic release. Looking back though, it’s very plausible that this jarring mise-en-scéne mashup was intentionally constructed with the film’s ending in mind – that Darabont constructed The Mist ’s finale as a darker reassertion of Shawshank ’s key theme: that ultimately, hope is everything – a maxim that allows Tim Robbins’ wrongfully-imprisoned convict to survive his years of incarceration with thoughts like this:

“Remember Red, hope is a good thing, maybe the best of things, and no good thing ever dies.”

Whereas in Shawshank and even in King’s novella of The Mist the characters are rewarded for clinging to hope, Darabont brutally penalizes his protagonist in the movie adaptation for forsaking it. The closing shot of The Walking Dead ’s Melissa McBride clutching her children after walking out into the mist much earlier in the movie is a clear visual callback to the power of faith, particularly as it happens when we see Draper at his lowest ebb, falling to pieces as he comes to terms with the terrible consequences of his actions.

(By the way, speaking of Melissa McBride, re-watching The Mist as a ‘spot The Walking Dead actors drinking game could be a lot of fun – or an extremely messy night – no fewer than five Darabont collaborators from the show pop up in the film!)

There can be no argument that whatever the reasons for the rewrite, Darabont’s revised ending is a visceral punch to the gut, the kind of ending that is tailor-made for YouTube reaction videos. Ultimately, as I was suggesting with the point about stylistic juxtaposition, it wasn’t the freaky monsters that were the undoing of Draper and the other characters. After all – with all the CG contrasted against a documentary aesthetic, how could they be? At the point of the characters’ collective demise, the creatures were nowhere to been seen or heard (in fact, re-watching the scene suggests the exterior noises of military tanks are instead denizens of the mist, adding a delicious layer of dramatic irony). Nope, it’s abandoning hope that did it for Draper and co.—a rejection of the fading idealism that got them so far, but ultimately served as the final nail in their collective coffin.

King himself loved the ending and has gone on record to state the anyone that “spoils the last five minutes of the film should be hung from their neck until dead.” I think I’m pretty safe as the statute of limitations has surely passed (but there’s still a big spoiler warning at the top)… but should he set Pennywise, Christine, and Carrie on me, know that it’s been an honor, Constant Reader.

As for Darabont, The Mist was his last outing as a film director, at least for now. Since then, harsh treatment at the hands of AMC following his exit from The Walking Dead and the cancellation of his follow up project  Mob City have meant that sadly, we’ve seen less and less of his creative vision as the years go by. Darabont does, however, still hold the rights to The Long Walk , another King story that fans are eagerly waiting for somebody to adapt, so there’s always the chance that Darabont will rewrite his own ending and we’ll see the duo work together once again.

The Mist Ending, Explained

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• The Mist's mysterious and deadly mist is caused by a government experiment gone wrong, allowing creatures from another dimension to inhabit Earth.
• David's group chooses their fate by deciding to take matters into their own hands, rather than being sacrificed by a cult.
• The film's dark and disturbing ending, where David kills his own son and others before realizing that help was on its way, was a departure from Stephen King's original ending, but was approved by the author.

Frank Darabont, the screenwriter and director of The Mist , had been a fan of Stephen King's work for a long time before he sat down, put pen to paper, and adapted the legendary author's eponymous 1980 novella into a script. Previously, in the '90s, Darabont adapted and directed two of King's other works, The Shawshank Redemption and The Green Mile , so when he finally had the time and opportunity to tackle The Mist , he was ready.

The Mist is a science-fiction horror film that follows David Drayton (Thomas Jane) and several others as they find themselves trapped in a local grocery store after a heavy mist descends on their town. After some back and forth with one another, people who are brave enough to venture outside the store soon discover that deadly creatures are lurking about. Seeing how those within the supermarket are beginning to lose their humanity and empathy, David decides that he needs to get his son to a safer location. He then leaves with a small group; however, their fate is not what anyone would expect.

Here is a full explanation of the ending of The Mist .

Stephen King's The Mist

What caused the mist.

The mysterious mist is noticed within the first few minutes of the film by David, his wife Stephanie, and their son Billy as they look around the property at the damage done by a storm the night before. It is not until more than halfway through the film — when David and Billy are a long way away from Stephanie — that audiences (and, for that matter, the characters) get an explanation as to what actually caused the mist and deadly supernatural creatures to descend upon the town.

Among those trapped in the store are three soldiers from the military base up in the nearby mountains. After several deaths have occurred, two of the soldiers decide to take their own lives by hanging themselves. The third, in shock and disbelief, tells the civilians that the circumstances are the fault of the government. The U.S. government was trying to discover other dimensions, and scientists accidentally opened a portal that allowed the deadly creatures to walk through and inhabit the Earth. Unable to close the doorway, military personnel fled from the mountains as the creatures began to roam.

Related: 10 Performances in Stephen King Movies That Are Massively Underrated

This "known yet unknown" situation enhances the characters' fear because, while they are now aware of the cause of the problem, they have no real idea how to solve it. This effectively puts everyone into a survival-mode mindset. As such, the group splits into two parties: one that believes God's wrath is upon everyone, and the other (David's group) that believes the circumstances are scientific and able to be handled. The latter group is the one willing to risk their lives as they still want to fight for their livelihoods and freedom, while the former group makes sacrifices for what they believe is "the greater good."

David's Group Chose Their Fate

After escaping a potentially horrible fate in the supermarket — Mrs. Carmody ( played by Marcia Gay Harden ) and the others were sacrificing people one by one to the monsters in hopes of being spared — David, his son, and three others find themselves driving away in search of a safer location.

Rather than letting a fast-forming cult decide their fate, this group chose to take matters into their own hands, even though they knew they had no idea what dangers they would face. When their car runs out of gas, the adults make a hard decision and agree to take their own lives. Looking at his sleeping son, David decides that the four bullets in the gun will put an end to everyone's life except his own. He quietly mentions that he will make do and find another way for himself.

Related: How Marcia Gay Harden in The Mist Perfectly Portrays Fundamentalism and Cult Leaders

This scene in The Mist is powerful, devastating, and, in many different ways, conflicting, as the characters believe their two options are to die quickly on their own terms or be brutally killed by a monster. The characters' deaths happen off-camera, but audiences can imagine that David was the one to pull the trigger on everyone, making him a murderer rather than them committing suicide. David is then left alone and in agony as he has just shot and killed his own son.

Stephen King's Ending vs the Film's Ending

While Darabont loves and respects King's work, he felt like the ending of The Mist novella needed to be changed in the screenplay for a better reaction from the audience. Originally, in King's version of the story, David's wife's fate remains unknown. There are too many fallen trees on their property for the group to drive up to the house, so they carry on. Rather than running out of gas and agreeing to a group suicide like in the film, they hear someone on the radio say "Hartford." This gives them hope that they will find safety or at least people to help them.

In Darabont's film version, the ending is much darker . Darabont did not want the ambiguous ending that suggested even an ounce of hope. Instead, after he writes David killing his own son and the others, he creates anticipation by making viewers expect a creature to come out of nowhere and kill David. Instead, the mist begins to lift, and military personnel walk and drive past him. He sees convoys of civilians being taken to safety, including a former distressed woman, who was with him in the supermarket alongside her children. It essentially dawns on him that, if he had just waited another minute, his son and wife would still be alive.

The Mist concludes with David on his knees crying and screaming. He's alive, but every parent knows that his life is over. After losing his wife and son, he will carry on as an empty shell — if he chooses to live at all. King himself approved of Darabont's change as he admitted to liking how "it was so anti-Hollywood" and "nihilistic" (via Far Out Magazine ). It is a hard truth to swallow, but, stylistically, Darabont made the right call by finishing the story with a fatal and disturbing ending. Rent The Mist on Prime Video

If you liked The Mist 's ending, check out our video below about other dark endings in Stephen King movies.

The Mist (2007) Movie Ending Explained and Themes Analyzed: Does Staying Inside the Supermarket Prove to be Safe in the Long Run?

“This [The Mist] has become a rather potent metaphor for where I think humanity is poised at the moment. It becomes a total microcosm of our culture and what we’re going through: the divisiveness, the fact that reasonable people are getting ground up in the machinery and agendas of the unreasonable people who are in power, the extremists holding sway, and the rest of us just getting dragged along for the ride.” 

Through his words, Frank Darabont astutely introduces his third Stephen King adaptation, “The Mist,” which is to some degree symptomatic of the fractured American experience following 9/11 and an age fraught with the rise of religious fundamentalism. In “The Mist,” Frank Darabont applies juxtapositions and multiplicities of society to express a horror that is as much visual as lexical.

In “The Mist,” an unassuming supermarket has become a glasshouse sanctuary housing the Maine locals from a menacing mist that has engulfed the entire community. However, being uncomprehendingly surrounded by death and terror, the community inside soon finds itself getting splintered over its varied beliefs on what surrounds it. Soon, the state inside becomes so fragile that the mist outside seems more inviting.

The Mist (2007) Plot Summary & Movie Synopsis:

David Drayton, a poster artist, is hand-painting a poster (a reference to Roland the Gunslinger from Stephen King’s “The Dark Tower” series.) for the commercial studio in his studio room at his home in Maine as a terrifying storm rages outside. As the electricity goes out, David goes downstairs with his wife, Stephanie, and son, Billy, leaving his unfinished work behind in his studio room.

The next morning, David laments, not knowing better, as the storm causes a tree to fly through the glass window and wreck the painting. As they are taking stock of the damage, David and Stephanie find the mist forming on the lake to be odd, especially since it is coming down from the mountain. David, however, leaves the thought of the mist and goes to his neighbor, Brent Norton, to lecture him for their smushed boathouse caused by the latter’s tree. However, the situation does not escalate, given Norton’s own damage, and they leave for the town to buy essentials. On their way, David and Brent, accompanied by Billy, notice several military trucks. David says that the trucks are from up the mountain, where an army base is located for The Arrowhead Project.

Once at the grocery supermarket, the Food House, David notices that it is a particularly crowded day as everyone is anticipating a storm and stocking up. Everyone inside the supermarket is baffled to see the military and the police cars speeding down the street. David hears an MP order some young military officials to be on guard as their leaves have been canceled for unknown reasons. Just after a foreboding siren, a local, Dan Miller, comes running towards the store to warn of ‘something in the mist’ that has taken another local. Despite Dan’s advice, a local runs to leave in his car. But the mist engulfs him, and his scream indicates that he is gone, too. The managers lock the door to the supermarket. Within seconds, the mist rolls through the town and envelops the supermarket. Soon, an earthquake hits.

People inside the supermarket take turns to estimate the cause of the mist and the earthquake. One Mrs. Carmody, a religious lady who is taken seriously by no one, says it is the end of days. This infuriates others. Amidst this, a lady pleads with the others to help her get to her little children who are alone at home. Nobody agrees to help her, including David, who has his son to look after. To everyone’s dismay, the lady ventures out into the mist and disappears.

Acknowledging that they might have to stay inside the supermarket for an inordinate amount of time, that is until the mist subsides, the locals try to form a community.

When do David and others first confront what is inside the mist?

David goes to the loading dock in search of blankets for Billy. He notices the generator is emanating smoke. As he turns it off and prepares to return, he hears a mysterious noise and a thumping on the shutter door of the dock. Deputy manager Ollie Weeks, Mechanics Jim Grondin, Myron LaFleur, and Norm, the bag boy, go out into the loading dock to look for the source of the noise. None of them, except Ollie, believe David. Jim, Myron, and Norm take jibes at David and belittle him. Norm goes out to clean the exhaust pipe of the generator as something is blocking it. The shutter is rolled up, and a throng of carnivorous tentacles yanks Norm out of the dock. David manages to hack off a piece of the tentacle.

Back in the store, David tries to tell Brent about the tentacles, but Brent does not believe him. He accuses David of setting up an elaborate joke to humiliate him as a payback for the lawsuit that Brent had filed against him. Brent assumes that the men hold animosity towards him on account of being an out-of-towner.

David finally makes the announcement to the people in the supermarket that Dan was right about the presence of something in the mist. Some others, including the manager, Bud Brown, go back to the dock to inspect and return with the horrifying visual of the tentacle sizzling down to a darkened liquid. Ollie insists on barricading and fortifying the glass walls of the store, as these alone cannot withstand the blows of the mysterious tentacled creature.

Instead of helping others to prepare for the worst, a traumatized Mrs. Carmody exacerbates the atmosphere with her delusional utterances of divine retribution and expiation. She does not stop until she is slapped by Amanda Dunfrey, the new teacher at the local school. Brent, on the other hand, tries to form a group of people who are unswayed by any form of delusions – whether Biblical as propagated by Carmody or supernatural as claimed by David. David and his allies, which include Amanda, Dan, Ollie, and Irene Reppler, an old teacher, arrange for charcoal fluids and mop for torches. Amanda gives them her gun, which she keeps in her handbag.

What happens to those who venture out in the mist following Brent?

 Following the loading dock incident, the patrons inside the supermarket divide themselves into three conspicuous groups with conspicuous leanings. The group that believes David’s claims comprises people who are adequately realists yet are perturbed by this inexplicable supernatural phenomenon. The second of Norton, as explained earlier, The third group is more like a cult of Mrs. Carmody, who is now no longer a hapless, ‘unstable’ woman. In fact, the situation has bolstered her stature.

Brent Norton is ready to leave the supermarket to seek rescue despite David’s constant plea against his idea. Before leaving, David requests Brent tie a clothesline around his waist, which will let the remaining ones know if he has crossed the 300-foot mark. A biker who offers to accompany Brent and his group agrees to have it tied around his waist.

The biker progresses safely for some time. But soon, David experiences a sharp tug at the lines, which goes haywire. David tries to drag the biker back after the line stops making movement. Only the lower half of the biker’s body returns. The biker’s death leads the remaining patrons to be convinced of the presence of unknown creatures in the mist.

What creatures break into the store?

At night, the store’s light invites the attention of a swarm of huge Scorpionflies that stick to the glass walls of the store.  However, a flock of Pterobuzzards follow the flies and appear from out of nowhere. The pterodactyl-like creatures eat the flies and, in the process, cause several craters in the glass windows. As the creatures start squeezing into the store through the holes, the patrons start preparing torches to kill them. However, the fire torches cause a mishap, and one of them, Joe, catches fire. The creatures kill Sally, the clerk, and Tom. A woman named Patty, who has been taking care of Billy while David is busy, dies by suicide.

Sensing that Joe’s life is hanging by a thread and he needs a supply of antibiotics to fight the infection, the men decide to get medicines from the pharmacy next door. The next morning, David, Ollie, Jim, Irene Reppler, Wayne Jessup, Dan, Bobby Eagleton, and Mike Hatlen decide to go to the pharmacy to bring medical supplies. The group enters the pharmacy. During the process of collecting the supplies, they realize that the pharmacy has become a lair of Gray Widowers. All of them survive by a whisker, except for Joe’s brother, Bobby, and another patron, Mike. Shortly after they return, Joe dies.

How is the Arrowhead Project connected to all this?

The MP, who we see in the beginning, is found entangled in the cobweb in the pharmacy. He murmurs something– “It’s all our fault”– that concerns David and causes him to believe that the soldiers must know something about it. David confronts Wayne Jessup, one of the military officials who had a crush on Sally, over the MP’s final confession. While Mrs. Carmody, now a full-blown religious zealot, is addressing her congregation, David and his friends search for Wayne’s friends. They find the two friends have hung themselves in the loading dock. Wayne, who had come back from the pharmacy and told his friends about the MP’s words, is shocked to find that his friends have indeed hung themselves as they were claiming to do. David demands answers from Wayne on the questionable workings of the Arrowhead Project.

Jim, unable to negotiate with the trauma that fractured him due to what conspired in the pharmacy, has now joined Mrs. Carmody’s ‘cult.’ He notices the group enter the dock and drags Wayne out to expose him to the others. Jessup cries and begs the others to consider the fact that he was just stationed up in the mountain and not responsible for whatever has been going on. Jessup clears up the air and tells them that the Arrowhead Project was meant to open a portal to communicate with the other world.

The Mist that surrounds them is otherworldly, along with the monsters that are showing up outside the superstore. A livid Mrs. Carmody makes incendiary remarks and incites her followers by calling Wayne ‘a Judas in [their] midst’. Wayne is not spared. The butcher of the Food House, Mr. Mackey, plunges a knife into Wayne’s stomach a few times and throws him outside the store as an offering to the creatures outside. David and his friends, far fewer in number, helplessly watch. Wayne screams in pain and requests Jim to let him in, but a colossal Arachni-Lobster grabs him.

The Mist (2007) Movie Ending Explained:

Does staying inside the supermarket prove to be safe in the long run.

The atmosphere inside the grocery store is hostile as Mrs. Carmody has now turned into a malefic nemesis. Shared psychosis prevails over the rational communitarian approach. David understands that choosing to stay inside is now no longer a safe option for anyone with even the dimmest rationality left. As the group tries to sneak out, Mrs. Carmody intervenes. Mrs. Carmody threatens that going out of the store is against God’s will, and she would not allow that to happen. She incites her followers again, this time to sacrifice Billy and Amanda. However, Mrs. Carmody is gunned down by Ollie, and her followers no longer have the power to detain David and the others.

David, Billy, Amanda, Reppler, and Dan manage to board David’s Land Cruiser. However, Ollie is chomped down by the Arachni-Lobster. Myron and Ambrose become prey to the Gray Widowers. Bud runs back to the supermarket. David drives to his home but finds it completely enmeshed in the cobwebs of the Gray Widowers. He tries to look for Stephanie, but she is up against the wall. Her body is all pale and resembles a mummy entangled in the cobwebs. David is devastated and heartbroken but tries to drive to the south in the hopes of a clearer atmosphere. He keeps driving until the fuel hits the pan.

Realizing that they have no other option than to die, in the final moments, the adults make the enormously difficult decision of allowing David to shoot them, along with Billy, with Amanda’s gun and then for David to get out of the car and accept a painful death from the monsters in the mist. David breaks the promise he had made to Billy and kills everyone in the car to give them a quick death and relieve them from getting devoured painfully by the monsters outside. David then exits the car and waits for the monsters to get him.

However, as he looks over to the other side, he sees a military tanker cutting across the mist and driving past him. The mist subsides and David spots a line of military convoys carrying survivors of the mist. David recognizes one of the survivors – the woman who had left the supermarket early to be with her kids at home. The military exterminates all the cocoons and cobwebs with fire.

With the destruction/expulsion of the monstrous creatures, David surrenders and is brought to his knees by the realization that he killed his friends and his son unnecessarily as they were moments away from being rescued. Even more distressing is the fact that all this while David has been driving away from the rescue operation – had he remained in the market with the others, help would have arrived. There is nothing left for David now rather than to succumb to the enormously heavy brunt of guilt and misery.

The Mist (2007) Movie Themes Analyzed:

Fear and terror in modern society.

Despite their generic contours allowing affinity with the supernatural and the uncertified, horror and sci-fi genres have certain broad ideological tendencies and represent key moments of social history that help salvage their cinematic values instead of being discarded as plain pop culture artifacts. In its own aesthetic ways, the genre films persistently respond to cultural and national crises.

With The Guardian sealing its fate by claiming that the film “may one day be seen as America’s definitive post-9/11 movie,” critics like Terence McSweeney have argued that “The Mist” is an allegory of the post-9/11 American experience. Even Darabont has agreed on this multiple times.

McSweeney notes that the mechanics of the disaster-horror genre hinge on employing varied characters from different rungs of society to disburse the horror from the individual to the entire world. While the film introduces the out-of-town liberal Black American Brent Norton, it also includes profanity-spewing ‘redneck’ mechanics Jim and Myron. Similarly, an anti-government septuagenarian schoolteacher is given a level playing field with a social outcast who, by the end of the film, manages to amass a cult dancing to the tunes of her delusional speech.

Perhaps the earliest marker that fear has started to spread out its net in the minds of the patrons shows up during the loading dock episode. Despite David’s warnings, the mechanic and the bag boy insist on rolling up the shutters to see what is causing the noise. They start abusing Jim and make personal remarks about him when he tries to stop them. Ollie’s words prove to be important: “ ‘They’ve lost their sense of proportion; out there in the market, they were scared and confused. In here, there’s a problem they can solve, so they’re goddamn gonna solve it.”

The men who had little say back in the front of the supermarket over the developments outside now feel a tragic sense of security and control– tragic as it is false– as they prepare to fix the generator and thus get ready to fight the unknown. Even if the logical solution is to not venture out and wait for the creature to go away on its own, fear has taken away the capability to think rationally. Frank Darabont attempts to situate and put a lens on the subtexts of the fear that emerges in the fertile territory of the supermarket rather than go explore it in the monsters outside. In an interview, he proclaims:

“It’s always about that journey of the human condition. That’s what makes it particularly valid, particularly relevant. It’s an examination of fear. It’s an examination of people operating in a pressure cooker of fear where fear replaces reason. That’s why I’ve always loved this story. It wasn’t so much about the “mist” outside the windows with the groovy critters in it. It’s about what the people are going through inside the market.”

Fear and Religious Fundamentalism

The other strand of global fear that rears its head inside the supermarket is the one weaponized by Mrs. Carmody– religious fundamentalism. Mrs. Carmody’s congregation brings back memories from “True Detective” (season 1) when Rust Cohle and Martin Hart visit a traveling revival tent, and the visual and the aural landscape stirs a conversation between the two about religion. Rust asks, “What do you think the average IQ of this group is?” as he observes the mannerisms of a group of powerless individuals painfully unaware of the quagmire that pulls them down, swaying to the preachings of a pompadoured reverend. Rust endeavors to describe the fascination with the reverend:

“Transference of fear and self-loathing to an authoritarian vessel. It’s catharsis. He absorbs their dread with his narrative. Because of this, he is effective in proportion to the amount of certainty he can project. Certain linguistic anthropologists think that religion is a language virus that rewrites pathways in the brain, dulls critical thinking.”

Mrs. Carmody’s emergence in the supermarket as an invincible religious zealot is rooted in the deeply entrenched sense of fear among the people. While others, including David and Brent, grow miserable seeking help, Mrs. Carmody’s life force is revitalized, bolstered by the collective fear that she can fashion as she pleases. When Carmody goes into her vehement tirade:

“We are being punished for going against the will of God. For going against the forbidden rules of old. Walking on the moon! Yes! Yes! Or splitting his atoms. Or stem cells and abortions! And destroying the secrets of life that only God above has any right to!”

McSweeney astutely observes how it brings to mind Jerry Falwell, an American televangelist, a diatribe against ‘the pagans, and the abortionists, and the feminists, and the gays and the lesbians who are actively trying to make that an alternative lifestyle, the ACLU, People For the American Way, all of them who have tried to secularize America. I point the finger in their face and say, “ You helped this happen” ’ following 9/11.’

The ones who threaten to crucify Carmody initially find themselves on nodding terms with her as their frightened selves are deluded into believing that she is the only leader who seems to provide some certainty.

Read More: 10 Movies to Watch if You Like Knock at the Cabin (2023)

The Mist (2007) Movie Links: IMDb , Rotten Tomatoes , Wikipedia , Letterboxd Cast of The Mist (2007) Movie: Thomas Jane, Marcia Gay Harden, Laurie Holden, Andre Braugher, Toby Jones The Mist (2007) Movie Released on Nov 21, 2007, Runtime: 2h 5m, Genre: Horror/Sci-Fi/Mystery & Thriller

Where to watch the mist.

To fine-tune May Sarton's words-- the films we love are built into us. M.A. Film Studies, Jadavpur University (2022).

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Losing Hope: Re-Evaluating the Shocking Ending of ‘The Mist’ 15 Years Later

Content Warning: Suicide

It may not be one of Stephen King ’s most popular stories, but The Mist is still a surprisingly influential piece of genre fiction. From Half-Life to Silent Hill , several horror properties have openly drawn inspiration from this eerie novella. That’s why it’s surprising that it took so long for the story see an adaptation, with frequent King collaborator Frank Darabont championing the project for nearly three decades before finally releasing his take on The Mist in 2007.

Starring genre favorite Thomas Jane as artist David Drayton alongside a talented ensemble featuring names like Marcia Gay Harden and Andre Braugher (as well as several actors who would later become popular in Darabont’s The Walking Dead series), the film is a decidedly faithful adaptation of King’s original tale, right down to the disturbing creature descriptions and multiverse references. Taking place in central Maine, the plot follows a group of people who become trapped in a supermarket after a mysterious mist rolls into town, bringing with it otherworldly horrors. Isolated and besieged by primitive monsters, some of the survivors slowly begin to devolve into religious fanaticism, leading to an unsettling single-location thriller.

Despite the film keeping most of its source material intact, with King even citing the first screening of the flick as one of the happiest moments of his career, Darabont’s take on the story ends on a much more sinister note. In fact, the film’s final moments were the subject of major controversy among horror fans upon release, with audiences accusing the uncomfortable climax of ruining everything that preceded it and being an example of shock for shock’s sake.

While I agree that the ending of The Mist might be a bit too mean-spirited for some viewers, I’d argue that the downer finale is a perfect counterpoint to the film’s overarching themes. That’s why I’d like to discuss how it was a perfect ending back in the day, and even more impactful a decade and a half later, making the movie a memorable classic by ending it on a dramatic gut-punch. And just in case you’ve yet to witness this tragic masterpiece: there are major spoilers ahead, as we’ll be discussing the ending of both the movie and the novella…

Not exactly 2007’s feel-good movie of the summer.

Overall, the original narrative played out in pretty much the same way as the film, with slight variations in character deaths and a few extra subplots like David having a stress-induced affair with Amanda. Once the group finally escapes the madness of the supermarket, the story concludes with David noting that death would be preferable to becoming lost in the mist and realizing that there aren’t enough bullets for suicide. The group then rides off towards an uncertain fate, though a faint radio signal ends the tale with a glimmer of hope.

However, the final act of the movie is where Darabont took some serious creative liberties, seeing our traumatized protagonists escape the supermarket only to find themselves stranded in the middle of the mist once their jeep runs out of gas. After a moment of resigned silence, the group agrees to mass suicide despite not having enough bullets, with David being forced to shoot his own son and then face the extra-dimensional horrors on his own. Moments later, the lone survivor witnesses a military operation clearing out the mist as trucks transport people to safety, realizing that his friends and only child died for nothing.

Not quite a “happily ever after”.

Naturally, this ending is incredibly dark even for a Stephen King story, especially when the author is known for coming up with some of horror’s most absurd deus ex machinas in order to provide his readers a reasonably satisfying conclusion (though fans of Pet Sematary and Revival know that this isn’t always the case). While the movie had some pretty disturbing stuff up to that point, like the sacrifice of Private Jessup and that entire pharmacy sequence, there was nothing this downright mean . That’s why it makes sense that some viewers thought the scene came out of nowhere, though I don’t think that’s the case.

If you keep in mind the film’s meditations on hope and faith and how that influences people’s reactions during a crisis, it becomes clear that these misguided deaths were more than just a gratuitous expression of nihilism. While it makes sense that our lead characters would reject the notion of hope after everything they’ve seen (which is what makes the story a great example of cosmic horror), I believe that this tragic ending to The Mist is meant to criticize the complete rejection of faith in the same way that the supermarket’s religious insanity is meant to criticize the fanatical embrace of faith.

Even gloomier in the Black & White version!

As we’ve seen throughout history, while an excess of faith can make dire situations worse and even lead to man-made atrocities, a complete lack of it can often result in the same kind of well-intentioned destruction – with faith not necessarily meaning “religion”. While it wasn’t quite as apocalyptic as the Arrowhead disaster, the Covid-19 pandemic serves as a grim example of this. Since 2020, several groups devolved into political fanaticism after becoming trapped in confined spaces due to a worldwide threat. Meanwhile, mental illness took its toll on the population as folks began to lose faith in each other, often motivated by awful stories in sensationalist media. It’s this kind of decidedly human horror that makes The Mist such a timeless experience (especially when some political groups were so keen on “sacrificing” certain demographics to the virus in real life).

With that in mind, it’s clear that Darabont’s version of The Mist ends in a more nuanced manner than King’s original story, functioning even better as a cautionary tale. In fact, Darabont only agreed to direct the film for Dimension if they promised not to make him change his script’s horrific ending, with the studio even offering double the budget if he changed that simple detail. The director obviously refused, having planned this passion project for decades and knowing that the story needed this added balance.

Like all good art, the exact intention behind Darabont’s ending to The Mist is still up for interpretation, though the director has gone on record stating that he sees the film as a thematic companion piece to The Shawshank Redemption . This makes sense, as that story was about hope and this one is about hopelessness. That being said, I particularly enjoy the grisly theory that Mrs. Carmody was right about everything, as salvation only comes after a malevolent God has received a bloody sacrifice.

Personally, I appreciate the finale as a poignant parable about not despairing during dark times, as this tragedy wasn’t inevitable. That’s why I think The Mist ‘s ending isn’t quite as bleak as it initially appears, and is part of the reason why this brilliant little monster movie continues to age like a fine wine.

Born Brazilian, raised Canadian, Luiz is a writer and Film student that spends most of his time watching movies and subsequently complaining about them.

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“die jason die”: six badass horror movie fans like tommy jarvis [friday the 13th week].

Presented by Paramount Scares , Friday the 13th Week sees Bloody Disgusting heading to Camp Crystal Lake for a series of features that celebrate the Voorhees family and their influence. Yesterday, Rachel Reeves highlighted other camp-adjacent scares. Today, Luiz H.C. takes inventory of all the horror movie fans in horror similar to franchise hero Tommy Jarvis.

Writers may come up with nightmares and directors bring them to life, but everyone knows that it’s the horror fans that really keep the genre going. That’s why it’s always refreshing to see scary movies show some appreciation towards the community, like that time Jason Voorhees was (rather brutally) defeated by a young monster movie enthusiast played by Corey Feldman, aka Tommy Jarvis.

In light of the 40th anniversary for both Jarvis and FRIDAY THE 13th – The Final Chapter , we’ve come up with a list celebrating six other badass horror fans in horror movies. After all, what horror fan hasn’t daydreamed about using their genre expertise to take down vampires, murderers and zombies? As usual, don’t forget to comment below with your own favorite cinematic horror nerds if you think we missed one.

And if you’re dying for more Friday the 13th content, Paramount Scares and Bloody Disgusting are presenting an eight-film marathon on the Friday the 13th franchise. Not in the area? Can’t make it? Paramount Scares and Fangoria are also presenting nationwide screenings of FRIDAY THE 13th – The Final Chapter.

6. Mark Petrie (Lance Kerwin/ Dan Byrd/Jordan Preston Carter) – Salem’s Lot

The first of several young vampire experts on this list, the preteen horror aficionado Mark Petrie was among the first residents to notice that something fishy (or is it fang-y?) was going on with the population of Jerusalem’s Lot. In fact, his obsession with classic monster movies is what ultimately leads our survivors to safety, with Mark being a source of undead knowledge for our older protagonists.

He may be the youngest survivor of the bunch, but Mark is still willing to face the vampiric threat head-on, which is why I think he qualifies as a badass horror fan. And while we’re on the subject of Salem’s Lot , I really hope that the upcoming remake does the character justice, as I’d love to see Mark’s interests updated to include more modern creature features.

5. Terry Chandler (Louis Tripp) – The Gate & The Gate 2

Most parents are worried about their kids talking to strangers or setting the living-room carpet on fire when they’re left home alone, but even the most paranoid guardian would have trouble imagining the kind of mess that Glen and his buddies would run into when they encounter a mysterious geode in their backyard.

However, among this rag-tag group of troublemakers, most horror fans agree that the occult-obsessed Terry Chandler is the most entertaining, with his knowledge of demonology, genre lore and heavy metal becoming incredibly valuable when the time comes to get rid of their otherworldly invaders – even if he is partially responsible for the mess in the first place.

4. The Monster Squad – The Monster Squad

The 80s had no shortage of quirky groups of pre-teen buddies going on wacky adventures, but only one of these gangs had the honor of facing the Universal Monsters. Originally a fan-club dedicated to the iconic creatures, the titular Monster Squad was eventually forced to rally against the things that go bump in the night.

And while The Monster Squad wasn’t the box-office hit that it deserved to be, there’s no denying that the film’s depiction of young horror fans would go on to influence countless other characters in genre media. That being said, not even the Stranger Things gang has managed to recruit Frankenstein’s creature to their cause, which is why the Squad remains in a league of their own.

3. Charley Brewster (William Ragsdale/Anton Yelchin) – Fright Night Franchise

We’ve all heard of folks whose obsession with scary media has made them a little bit paranoid, but every now and then, it turns out that they were right to be scared. Case in point: Fright Night ’s teenage vampire slayer, Charley Brewster. Well-versed in undead lore due to his love of horror movies, this clever high schooler was able to quickly identify all the signs of vampiric activity in his neighbor’s home.

Whether it’s William Ragsdale or the late, great Anton Yelchin, both versions of the character have proven to be badass warriors of light when things get personal, which is why I think we can all agree with Evil Ed when he says: “You’re so cool, Brewster!”.

2. The Frog Brothers (Corey Feldman/ Jamison Newlander) – The Lost Boys Franchise

Traumatic events can force kids to grow up a little too fast, and there’s no better example of this than the monster-hunting Frog Brothers. Informed by conveniently accurate horror comics, Edgar and Alan Frog soon turned their nerdy hobby into a matter of life and death when they discovered that their idyllic California town was secretly overrun by Nosferatu.

The Frogs may not be the main characters of The Lost Boys , I think we can all agree that their improvised weapons and overly adult demeanor make their scenes some of the most entertaining (and memorable) parts of an already fun movie. And if you’re also a fan of these coastal vampire slayers, I’d recommend checking out the cheap yet weirdly entertaining sequels to find out what the brothers have been up to in the years since the original film.

1. Randy Meeks (Jamie Kennedy) – Scream Franchise

Jasmin Savoy Brown’s portrayal of film geek Mindy Meeks-Martin may be one of the best parts of the new Scream films, but if this franchise has taught us anything, it’s that you just can’t f*** with the original. That’s why it’s no surprise that the number one spot has to go to our favorite Ghostface survivor, Randy Meeks.

A film bro with a heart of gold, Randy is the very definition of a nerd finding themself in a situation where their niche interest can finally be of practical use. And while Randy’s appropriately meek demeanor might be stretching the definition of “badass”, the guy kept helping his friends take down movie-obsessed serial killers even after he was tragically killed in the sequel, which is why I think he’s earned his spot on this list.

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What Stephen King Thinks About The Mist Movie Ending

"The Mist" has arguably one of the bleakest horror movie endings of all time, and that's saying something. Adapting the Stephen King novella of the same name, writer-director Frank Darabont created a finale that feels utterly cruel and overwhelmingly dark. It's worth noting that this is an ending Darabont created himself — King's novella ends on a dark but potentially hopeful note, whereas Darabont's ending seems to be saying there's no hope to be found anywhere. It's designed to make you feel bad. 

Darabont, for his part, says he merely seized on a suggestion from King's story itself. "I thought, 'If we're gonna make a horror movie based on a Stephen King story, let's take Steve's most horrible, dour, and darkest thought and follow it out to its logical conclusion," Darabont said . "It really is from Stephen King, although he himself didn't realize it until I read that line back to him."

King himself has been open about the ending, and even approved of what Darabont conjured up. But before we get to King's thoughts, let's break down what happens during the end of "The Mist" movie, shall we?  Major spoilers follow .

What happens at the end of The Mist

In "The Mist," a group of people find themselves trapped in a supermarket when a mysterious, otherworldly mist rolls in and engulfs everything. David Drayton (Thomas Jane) and his young son Billy (Nathan Gamble) are among those trapped within the market, and David is one of the first to realize this is no ordinary mist. There are monstrous creatures lurking, ready to kill anyone who dares step outside. Unfortunately, things inside aren't so great, either. A religious nut named Mrs. Carmody (Marcia Gay Harden) is stirring up people's emotions and making them think this deadly mist is some sort of punishment from God. 

After several mishaps (and deaths), David, Billy, a woman named Amanda (Laurie Holden), an older guy named Dan (Jeffrey DeMunn), and an elderly woman named Irene (Frances Sternhagen) escape the market in David's car, with David clutching a loaded gun. First, they travel to David's home, where he finds his wife has been killed. Then they head out onto the road, hoping to escape the mist. But the mist is everywhere. During their travels, they cross paths with a massive Lovecraftian monster. Feeling hopeless, the survivors decide to end it all. The task falls to David — but he only has four bullets in the gun, which he uses on everyone else (including his son). Now, David, splattered with blood, is the only one left alive. 

David hears something rumbling outside the car, and assumes it's one of the mist monsters. Clearly out of his mind at this point, David steps outside, hoping the monster will come kill him. But it's  not a monster — it's the military, who are in the process of killing the monsters and clearing the mist. If David had just waited a few minutes, his son and everyone else he killed would've been saved. The film then ends on David's horrified, insane screams, and we're all left feeling awful. 

What Stephen King thinks about The Mist ending

As mentioned above, this film ending is different from how King ends things in his novella. For the most part, the movie is a very faithful adaptation of King's story. However, once David and the other characters escape the market and hop in his car, things differ. Instead of deciding to die by suicide, David and his fellow survivors vow to just keep driving, hoping against hope that they'll find an escape from the mist. At one point, David scans the radio and  thinks he hears someone say "Hartford," suggesting that might be a safe zone. Here, King ends things, with a slight glimmer of hope that maybe, just maybe, the characters will reach Hartford and be saved. 

So what does King think of the movie's drastically different ending? In his non-fiction book "Danse Macabre," King says of "The Mist": 

"The ending will tear your heart out . . . but so will life, in the end. Frank Darabont's vision of hell is completely uncompromising. If you want sweet, the Hollywood establishment will be pleased to serve you at the cineplex, believe me, but if you want something that feels real, come here. Darabont could have made a higher-budget film if he'd added a cheerful 'It's all OK, kiddies' ending, but he refused. His integrity and courage shine in every scene."

In other words, King is happy about the different ending. Or at least as happy as someone can be regarding such a bleak finale. It's a nasty, visceral ending, and what's more horrifying than that?

The Mist (2007) Movie Review – A transcendent allegory for mankind’s concealed evil

A transcendent allegory for mankind’s concealed evil

The Mist is a 2007 sci-fi horror movie, premised on the same-titled 1980 novella written by Stephen King.

The horror movie genre is among the most challenging to create. Most frequently, scary movies are set in a gothic, Victorian period, and while this ambiance helps to establish the mood, too much of it makes the plot predictable as well as repetitive.

One is provided a unique start when a truly innovative background is introduced, and the moviemakers have many opportunities to impress the viewers. Presumably because of this, Frank Darabont’s movie had such an influence when it released. There’s one element King excels at and it’s coming up with innovative ways to frighten his audiences and give them a variety of anxieties that cling to their subconscious and manifest as irrational fears.

The action of the story occurs primarily in the Maine town of Bridgton, within which inhabitants lose power due to a violent thunderstorm. A strange mist ambushes them as they are assembled at the neighborhood supermarket to buy goods, unleashing a swarm of monstrous beasts. The characters’ own insecurities, which have the potential to turn them against one another, are equally destructive.

The movie’s frightening aesthetic is heavily influenced by the gloomy settings of a supermarket as well as a creepy town. The fact that a supermarket makes up the majority of the setting here adds to its chilling effect. Because of this, the concept and cinematography are unique and innovative. The gloomy scenery and overarching macabre theme are further enhanced by the music, which paces itself beautifully.

In their portrayals of their respective characters, Thomas Jane, Marcia Gay Harden, Andre Braugher, and Laurie Holden all excel. They genuinely own the characters they play, which makes you root for or against the character, fully engaging you in the narrative. It just goes to show how well-cast each character is for their respective roles.

Although they’re forced to deliver lines that are overly dramatic and caricature-like, the cast consistently delivers outstanding performances. Marcia Gay Harden is absolutely magnificent as Mrs. Carmody despite frequently appearing to squeal, blast, and start yelling in the middle of nothing. Viewers can’t help but hate the character because she does such a good job at portraying the antagonist.

The Mist is certainly not like cliché horror movies, where you expect a ghost and anticipate hearing someone ask, “Who’s there?” Throughout the majority of the movie, Darabont stays true to King’s short story. Additionally, he adds more characters, fills in more information, and dramatically increases the monster mayhem, but the ultimate result is among the most tonally accurate King movie adaptations ever made.

The movie’s themes include fear, anxiety, disgust, and demons. In addition to the demons that linger outdoors, this is a movie about the demons that dwell within. The entire movie is an emotive exploration of the greatest and worst aspects of human impulse.

The movie feels like a transcendent allegory for mankind’s deviously concealed evil, which manifests everywhere from horrific atrocities to the silent neighbor. This evil is concealed behind the pretence of modern civilization and the illusion of advancement.

Perhaps this movie is one of the harshest criticisms of humanity’s fear-driven, irresponsible disposition as it demonstrates that individuals are nothing other than a response to their anxieties. Even King himself appreciated the different ending for its audacity and the way it hits the viewers with the motifs of the narrative head-on, although it draws away from the original writing.

Apart from the conclusion, Darabont attentively adheres to the original source; however, he declines to make adjustments like other filmmakers who believe that King’s tales will naturally translate to movies due to their accomplishment in hard copy. The fundamental elements of the story that initially captivated him are discovered, and in addition to narrative developments better suited for a movie, he adds sentient, cinematic content to it.

Darabont is also aware that people, not demons, are what drive his narrative. In contrast to the impersonal horrors lingering in the mist, he claims that real horror forces us to consider our place in the universe. This intention is reflected in his systematic process, which centers the camera on people rather than demons.

The mini-societies that are formed throughout Darabont’s adaptation of King’s story are expertly described and divided, just like research participants constrained in a small space for something like a conflict-resolution laboratory activity, with the mad scientist filmmaker capturing their slow screw-ups. Even though he is adhering to well-established horror story archetypes, Darabont portrays frightening and depressing – but unmistakably human – situations with the utmost respect and concern for his archetypes.

The movie asserts that humanity is a fear-filled abyss that, when placed to the test, turns people into abominations of unfathomable horror. Civilization makes up for this by portraying itself as cultured, but when this façade crumbles, we regress to our ugliness.

In the end, the movie presents a recurring Stephen King theory: that individuals are fundamentally barbaric and that civilization as a whole is insensitive. Our attempt to understand and regulate the unfamiliar results in outrage, scepticism, and religious fanaticism, which causes blindness and violent behavior. You absolutely must watch this movie if you enjoy horror flicks.

Read More: The Mist Ending Explained

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Conclave review: catty cardinals choose the new pope in riveting & excellently shocking drama.

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Conclave is a deceptive film, one that wears the cloak of awards bait but reveals itself to be something much different as it unfolds. Directed by Edward Berger, who won Best International Feature for All Quiet on the Western Front , Conclave has a simple premise: when the pope dies, cardinals from all over the world are sequestered as they choose the holy father’s successor.

No one really knows what goes on behind those doors, but Berger and writers Peter Staughan and Robert Harris, the latter of whom wrote the novel the film is based on, posit that these pious men are as petty as anyone. Conclave is full of backstabbing, political maneuvering, and petty squabbles as the cardinals decide which of them will become the most famous man in the world. It’s more fun than it has any right to be, a B-movie thriller with a sheen of prestige that manages to be a damn good time at the movies.

Conclave Has As Much Backstabbing & Political Maneuvering As Succession & Game Of Thrones

A peak behind the curtains of the catholic church only increases the intrigue.

Dean Lawrence, played with steely resolve by Ralph Fiennes, is overseeing this conclave, but first, the pope’s death must be handled. The body is removed from his chambers and the door is sealed. Cardinals fly in from all over the world. They reconnect, slowly beginning to weave their webs of power as they prepare to be sequestered.

There are two factions fighting for the papacy: the conservative bloc, whose main candidate is Cardinal Tedesco (Sergio Castellitt). These cardinals in the film want the church to return to traditional values (issues like gay people, women's role in the church, and the tolerance of other faiths come up).

The liberal bloc is the complete opposite and one that the now-dead pope was a part of. The candidate they are pushing is Stanley Tucci's Aldo Bellini, though he makes it clear from the beginning that he doesn't want the papacy. This is exactly why he deserves it, they argue. Other candidates include Tremblay (John Lithgow), a cardinal under fire for reasons I won't spoil here, and Adeyemi (Lucian Msamati), a cardinal from Africa.

With the stage set and the cardinals sequestered, Conclave begins the game. Essentially, a cardinal needs a two-thirds majority vote from the group in order to ascend to the head of the church and those four candidates shore up most of the support save for one surprise: a new cardinal unknown to the rest of them: Benitez from Kabul (Carlos Diehz). Somehow, in each round of voting, he manages to increase his vote count.

To spoil much of the twists and turns of Conclave here would rob part of the fun from the film. There are allegations galore, surprise guests meant to destabilize candidates, and outside forces that begin making their way inside the walls of the church as instability defines the current era of Catholicism.

Conclave Is Firing On All Cylinders

From the score to berger's direction, it's an enrapturing experience.

Berger's direction is fittingly operatic; wide shots of the cardinals in their red garb, tight close-ups in cramped hallways, and a lens that points upward to capture the grandeur of the buildings these men call their offices. In tandem with Berger's direction is Conclave 's score, composed by Volker Bertelmann. It's filled with tight, quick string arrangements that evoke a horrific feeling, and alongside much of the happenings - long dark hallways, shadowy meetings, and backdoor deals - it perfectly raises the tension, doing just as much as the story and the actors.

Conclave is not trying to be some treatise on the state of the Catholic Church, nor is it saying anything new about modern religion. It's engrossing nonetheless, and it milks the titular event for every dramatic drop its worth. Watching actors like Lithgow, Fiennes, and Tucci chew scenery in some of the oldest buildings in the world is like a drug for anyone that loves character actors.

Ultimately, it's an impressive feat that Berger was able to pull Conclave off, not because he wasn't capable. All Quiet on the Western Front proved that the director knows how to stage drama. But that he made this movie fun is a testament to the power of the source material and all the creative teams behind the film who brought this chaotic, catty, and caustic conclave to the screen.

Conclave had its premiere at the 2024 Telluride Film Festival and screened at the Toronto International Film Festival. The film is 120 minutes long and rated PG for thematic material and smoking. It will be released in nationwide theaters on November 8.

Cardinal Lawrence leads the secretive papal election at the Vatican, where he uncovers a conspiracy and a secret that could destabilize the Church's foundation as leaders gather from around the world.

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‘Speak No Evil’ Review: This Blumhouse Remake of a Great Horror Shocker Is Unnecessary — and Worse, Unscary

Ryan lattanzio, deputy editor, film.

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But this version of “Speak No Evil,” despite an effectively creepy performance from James McAvoy , grinds the unsettling contours of the original into gory, “Straw Dogs”-lite, home-invasion comeuppance pulp in a last act that’s exactly the sort of dragged-out predictable material Tafdrup sought to avoid. Even a captivatingly unnerved Mackenzie Davis, here married to a feckless shell of a man played by Scoot McNairy, and the commanding “The Nightingale” actress Aisling Franciosi in her first major studio turn, can’t rescue this “Speak No Evil” from its own impulse toward placating the audience with a happy-ish ending that’s a far cry from the stones thrown in the final, harrowingly deflating scene of the original.

Everything and then some, as after a pitch-black snaking drive to Paddy and Ciara’s off-the-grid, working-class cottage home, Paddy is soon forcing game into the mouth of a devoutly (but perhaps hypocritically) vegetarian Louise. Watkins, who also wrote the script, lifts such faux-pas interactions directly from Tafdrup’s film — while leaving out the really creepy stuff like the Paddy of the original, there called Patrick, helping himself to a piss in the guest bathroom while Louise is taking a shower. Or the Danish couple in the 2022 film getting so turned on, whether they know it or not, by their hosts’ lack of shame that they end up having sex in the guest room with Patrick watching from a cutout window in the door. All Tafdrup’s kinks are ironed down to make this “Speak No Evil” presumably more palatable for popcorn-chomping moviegoers in the United States.

If you’ve seen the first “Speak No Evil,” there’s really no need to seek out this one. The best horror remakes enhance or augment their source material ( see Luca Guadagnino’s “Suspiria,” for one), finding new crumbs under the carpet previously unexplored or only dusted up in passing by the original. Watkins’ remake unforgivably lifts directly from the original while leaving out a lot of the strong stuff, including the awful inevitability Tafdrup set up as the hosts turn out to be marauders with a murderous secret.

In the American remake tradition, Watkins goes for a quote-unquote happier ending than Tafdrup did, one that finds Louise and Ben facing off in an overlong set piece against their hosts, while trying to prevent the premeditated family annihilation they walked right into. Davis, the Canadian indie film and TV actress beloved for her role in AMC’s “Halt and Catch Fire” and superbly menacing in Sophia Takal’s industry psycho-thriller “Always Shine,” does her best in a role that’s mostly a chess piece to move the plot machinations forward.

Same goes for McNairy, a helpless, spineless sad sack of a father who leaves his wife to take charge of the situation (and Davis is plenty game) as Paddy and Ciara turn full-blown evil. McAvoy’s gift for a rictus grin and a swaggering machismo that eases you into feeling comfortable, only to twist on a 180 into pure psychopathy, is well-played here. But he’s more cartoonishly evil toxic male than the often-unreadable enigma actor Fedja van Huêt conjured in the 2022 film — especially when he’s screaming in Ant’s face about his poor dancing skills.

“Speak No Evil” premieres in U.S. theaters on Friday, September 13.

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'Bad Monkey' Episode 6 Recap: A Ten on the Screwed Scale

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Editor's note: The below recap contains spoilers for Bad Monkey Episode 6.

"On a scale from one to ten, how screwed am I?" Vince Vaughn 's Andrew Yancy anxiously asks his lawyer. When he is met with the reply of "A million," Yancy fittingly rolls his eyes and responds, "You don't think I understand that ten is bad?" The dry and comedic interaction kicks off Bad Monkey 's trailer and, in Episode 6, we finally see how it came to fruition. Apple TV+'s Bad Monkey Episode 5 saw Yancy being broadcasted as a wanted man for Dr Israel O'Peele's ( Zach Braff ) murder on the news, and the show takes a wacky turn into legal thriller territory as Yancy tries to stay abreast of the law and his investigation. While he sorts out his ever-dramatic issues, Bonnie's ( Michelle Monaghan ) storyline dips into the stunning ecological message and appreciation that Bad Monkey subtly advocates for, leaving us with one of the most memorable visuals of natural beauty.

Rogelio Sets Yancy Up in 'Bad Monkey' Episode 6

After facing Rosa's ( Natalie Martinez ) mother's disapproval, Yancy needs to find another place to lie low, so he calls his dear friend Rogelio ( John Ortiz ). However, Rogelio was facing immense pressure from their boss, the chief Sonny ( Todd Allen Durkin ), in the previous episode. With his job and livelihood on the job, and needing to take care of his family and the mortgage, Rogelio decides to set Yancy up , and informs Officer Mendez ( Gonzalo Menendez ) about the meeting. Yancy is promptly arrested and Mendez begins building a case for Israel's murder against Yancy, hinging on the eyewitness we found out about in Episode 4. Rogelio takes a lot of the heat for his decision, as Yancy, Rosa, and even his own boyfriend, Montenegro ( Victor Turpin ), are deeply disappointed in him — but at least he has Sonny's seal of approval.

While there isn't any concrete evidence, it doesn't look good for Yancy, and his straightforward manner, which can be taken as disrespectful, doesn't help his case. Not only is there an eyewitness who places him near Israel's apartment during the gunshot, but Yancy also has Nick Stripling's ( Rob Delaney ) finger in his back pocket after using it to unlock his phone. As a dirty cop, Mendez turns the tide in his favor as he hides Nick's phone — making Yancy's possession of the appendage even more questionable. With Montenegro representing him, Yancy's absurd tale of Nick being alive also becomes difficult to prove, as there doesn't seem to be any proof that Nick, his private plane, and the hangar even exist, despite Montenegro's valiant efforts. Essentially, Yancy is royally screwed at this point — a solid ten on the scale.

Neville and Rosa Intersect in an Unexpected Way in 'Bad Monkey' Episode 6

Meanwhile, Neville ( Ronald Peet ) is still on the run from the relentlessly pursuing Egg ( David St. Louis ). With nowhere to turn, he decides to seek shelter and help from the Dragon Queen ( Jodie Turner-Smith), only to peek through her window and witness something deeply shocking. He finds her intimately bonding with Egg — as Tom Nowicki narrates, "his hunches were as bad as Yancy's." This is also when Driggs ( Crystal the monkey) doles out vengeance for abandoning him and screeches when he sees Neville, exposing him to Egg. Neville manages to escape, but not without a bullet wound in the shoulder , leaving Egg antsy about getting his hands on him again.

Ever vying to take action, Rosa comes to Yancy's legal aid by trying to prove the existence of the plane that Nick and Eve Stripling ( Meredith Hagner ) escaped on. While she is snooping around in the hangar, the plane disembarks a group of drug smugglers — it seems the captain is experienced at giving his passengers the utmost privacy. She is nearly caught by them and decides to pause her investigation to wait them out. Towards the end of the episode, she finally gets access to the plane and hears noises coming from inside. Suddenly, the door slams open and Neville lurches out, injured and barely conscious . However, he recognizes her as the woman he served at his sister's cafe — coffee with milk and two sugars. This is the first tangible and exciting way the Bad Monkey storylines cross over so far.

Rogelio Finds Redemption and Yancy Becomes a Free Man in 'Bad Monkey' Episode 6

As the case around Yancy unfolds, and he is submerged in deeper trouble, Rogelio's guilt for his contribution steadily rises . It comes to a head when he sees his boyfriend's children's stuffed turtle that was gifted by Yancy, jerking a memory out of the deep recesses of his mind. On Benito's ( Xander Mateo ) birthday, Yancy gifted him the turtle and explained how the red lights helped the babies use the moon as a guiding light to reach the ocean. We realize that the importance of this recurring story in Bad Monkey is twofold. It not only subtly introduces the series' ecological subtext , but also represents Yancy's friendship with Rogelio, as he calls him his "guiding light."

The heartfelt memory immediately galvanizes Rogelio into undoing his regretful actions. He decides his best course of action is to prod further information from Mendez's witness, who reveals that she actually saw another one-armed man lurking around the apartment before the gunshot . Mendez had encouraged her to deliberately leave it out of her statement in an effort to frame Yancy, as per his vendetta. Rogelio sheds light on this information, leading to Yancy being relieved of the charges, especially as Mendez flees the building when his part in the set-up is exposed. When Rogelio shows up at the last second to save the day, Yancy instantly forgives him, cementing Rogelio's brief fall from grace and eventual redemption arc .

Bonnie Faces Consequences in 'Bad Monkey' Episode 6

At the end of Episode 5, we saw Bonnie being confronted by a blast from her past — specifically the underage student she was sleeping with years ago, Cody ( Alex MacNicoll ). He had found Bonnie via the viral video of Yancy pushing her husband off the pier. At the beginning of Episode 6, before Yancy got arrested at Rogelio's place, he had returned home to find Bonnie and Cody reuniting. While he questions her decisions , he instructs her to hide out in his dad's cabin , since the feds are still searching for her.

At the cabin, Bonnie meets Yancy's dad, Jim ( Scott Glenn ), who is just as non-committal as Yancy and also shares the same respect and admiration for the environment. As Bonnie begins questioning her relationship with Cody, Jim encourages her to go soul-searching beneath the tranquil waters of the lake next to his cabin, which was home to manatees. This leads to one of the more visceral, unforgettable, and breathtaking scenes of the series, as Bonnie comes face to face with a manatee . Granted, she does end up discerning the wrong message from this experience, thinking she is supposed to reignite the flame with Cody. But the underwater shot taps into the idea of surrendering to nature, and finding wisdom in its natural beauty.

Luckily, Bonnie's delusions about a whirlwind romance with Cody are quickly shut down as she reads the novel he is writing about her. Being privy to his thoughts and descriptions of their relationship, it finally strikes her how childish and immature he is. She confides this in Jim, who also nudges her towards taking accountability for fostering Cody's obsession with her . She had taken advantage of Cody while he was still in his developmental years and was highly susceptible — she may have moved on, but he did not. Despite her sobering realization, Bonnie is still free-spirited at heart, so when the feds track her down, she steals Jim's boat and sails away.

'Bad Monkey' Episode 6 Reveals the Dragon Queen Isn't as Invincible as We Think

At the beginning of the episode, the Dragon Queen is gifted a property after she brings peace to a dying man. After his funeral, it was officially transferred to her name despite his daughter's protests, and ya-ya's ( L. Scott Caldwell ) concerns about charging their clients too much. It also happened to be a property that Nick had his eye on as it was built on land that would be prime to extend their beachside mall too. The Dragon Queen finds out about his interest and uses her budding connection with Egg to get an introduction to the developer, determined to sell the deed so she can gather enough money to leave the island.

Nick and Eve are hiding away in their extravagant little corner of the world, fervently hoping that the case against Yancy sticks so they won't have to deal with his interference anymore. When the Dragon Queen approaches them, they give her a low-ball offer they reserve for locals , inciting the queen's fiery, yet controlled fury. She lives up to her name in a captivating and immaculate monologue — her enunciated and deliberately curated words dripping with malice and a powerful mystique. She reprimands them for disrespecting her and storms off, leaving a blazing trail in her wake. As mesmerizing as her display of power was, it lands her in trouble in the closing scenes of Bad Monkey Episode 6 , as she is walking through secluded trees and a burlap bag is thrown over her head, dragging her off the screen .

Bad Monkey Episode 6 delves into wacky legal thriller territory with a beautiful character arc by Rogelio.

• Jodie Turner-Smith is a scene-stealer during her mesmerizing and provocative monologue.
• Legal drama, deception and redemption create a thrilling atmosphere in this moving episode.
• Bad Monkey's ecological message is subtly and touchingly woven into the story.

The first six episodes of Bad Monkey are available to stream on Apple TV+, with subsequent episodes dropping every Wednesday.

Watch on Apple TV+